Pray and Fast and Give Alms for Peace

The Syrian crisis is as complex as anything one might imagine.  Here are some of the key points from the past four years alone.  Suffice it to say, 250,000 individuals have died and 11 million have been displaced from their homes.  Every once in a while we get worked up over a picture, because a picture as the saying goes, is worth 1000 words.  Nikki Haley held up pictures asking how many children have to die before Russia cares? I'd change the word Russia to world.

Seeing people dying in a horrible quick fashion that is frightening, that makes us want to take action.

This sort of horror, like the picture of the boy washed up on the shore, like the picture of the boy in the back of the ambulance, somehow gets us more invested than say, this picture:

or this one: 

Which makes us want to change the channel because we can't wrap our heads around it and don't have a symbolic action we could do which would let us go back to not paying attention. 

So remember folks, you can kill with indifference, denial of humanitarian aid, bullets and bombs all you like, but if you do a chemical weapon drop, we'll send missles.  Please, go back to killing and oppressing your people in less emotionally gripping and disturbing ways.  To avoid further strikes, only oppress and kill in ways which are approved by other civilized nations.

I'm sorry if that sounds too sharp to some ears. I'll concede it might deter Assad from authorizing further flights from airbases he contols to drop chemicals on civilians who do not favor his regime, but it also might draw us into a high stakes conflict with Russia, since Russia suspended an agreement of military cooperation between the US and Russia, since Russia is an ally of the existing Syrian regime. Additionally, while surgical strikes provide symbolic relief, no one even pleased with the US response, believes this limited action will result in the regime having a change of heart.

While I hope the missles got the places that hold chemical weapons, no one should feel comfortable that the US sends drones or missles into countries where we have not declared war or been given sanction to act in a military fashion or that Russia has promised to bolster Syrian air defense systems and is sending a frigate to monitor Syria's port to the Mediteranean.  It has the feel of brinkmanship, and not "the art of the deal." Military action, like all other things we do, ought to be the result of reflective, deliberate policy and thoughtful examination.  This act, (in contrast with the talk up until last week), is reflexive and reactive.  I didn't like it with the past presidents, I still don't like it.  

So what do we do as we watch powers and principalities play out a game of live chess with real people?

If we remember, back when war with Syria seemed inevitable in 2013, Pope Francis asked the Church to pray and fast for peace.  Somehow, the U.S. need to go to war which seemed unavoidable, evaporated...overnight.

Perhaps it is time to make that request again, and this time, add alms giving in the form of each parish taking on a family. If the Pope asks our fellow Christians and Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters to each take on a family at each church, each mosque, each temple, we will be able to whittle that picture of endless despair down, and perhaps help prove there is another way to address "such relentless hate," by riding out to meet them.  Problems aren't intractable just because they're difficult to resolve. Problems remain intactable because people refuse to be moved or to move. What is required is embracing the cross.  Somehow, we have to know, if we are Catholic, everything always requires embracing the cross.   Somehow, we have to know, peace isn't the merely absence of conflict.  Anyone who ever had a silent fight knows how a house feels when two people aren't getting along.  On a global scale, we can't know peace when we wilfully ignore suffering so as to "get along."

What we keep forgetting, as individuals and whole peoples, is when we ignore a problem because it is hard, it gets bigger.  It's true with weight. It's true with debt.  It's true with education. It's true with politics.  It's true with everything that matters in life.  When we ignore problems because they are difficult, we eventually wind up ignoring people.    We need to take on this crisis we've ignored. 

How?

We can eliminate the humanitarian crisis by helping one family at a time, via one community at a time.  Risk is always involved when we reach out to a stranger, to an other, whenever we offer love but to do otherwise, is indifference (which is the simplest path and what we've done as a world whenever we thought we could).  We've tried indifference. It has lead to where we are now, with millions searching for room in the inn of the world, pictures of the dead and the dying and stories of suffering, waste and pain with no respite.

Here's some links to ways we can get involved.
Seven Ways to Help Syrian Refugees.

How to Get Congress to Act to provide relief to Syrian Refugees.

Here's one more, which has some of the same information but is still worth reading as I'm pleased it's from a secular source: How to Help.

Petition your bishop, your pastor, and your friends to encourage everyone to do the same.  As we prepare for Holy Week, we ought to ramp up our prayers, fasting and alms giving, storming Heaven, asking for the peace the world cannot give.   If we show we are not living as this world would have us, but as the next, perhaps we can have better pictures and better stories to tell.

So Pray the Rosary for peace.
Fast as penance for all the pain we've created via neglect, indifference and not being willing to act,
and give alms, so they will know who we are.

It may seem unreasonable to pray for peace in such a wartorn and conflicted country. How could it possibly happen? That's okay. God loves unreasonably.  We can be unreasonable with God in our prayers, and God wants peace for these people, for all of us, even more than we do. It may seem crazy to give alms when there are so many in need. How could our little be sufficient?  That's okay. Give what you can. God will do the multiplying. He's done it before.   It may even seem scary to take on caring for people of a different faith, people we don't know, and to invite them into our lives. Again, that's okay. 

Love is always unreasonable, generous and courageous.  So be unreasonable, generous and courageous.  This week, this about to be Holy Week, be love.  

A State of Civility, Idiocy and Mind...A Texan Rant

On Facebook, the picture was a shot of the back of a car seen in Rhode Island. 

"Misplaced Texan" in the colors and style of the Lone Star flag had been slapped on the back.  The caption in the picture. "Somewhere in Texas, some village is missing..." and we all know the last word is idiot. 

Now I am a Texan, and I am on many subjects, an idiot.  But if it is wrong to cloak a whole people by a stereotype born of negative traits that harken to past and present close mindedness, then it is wrong to cloak a whole people by a stereotype based on geography and politics. I tried to ignore it.

Maybe because I'd spent a bit of the morning thinking fondly of my father (the Gospel's readings today remind me of several boating stories about him and fellow Texans), I couldn't ignore what I'd seen.  Reading another friend's descriptions of the sounds and smells and tastes of New Orleans put me in a decidedly nostalgic Southern frame of mind.  The insult of it kept gnawing at me.

I thought of how the air smells in my hometown Beaumont.  (Mine growing up was salt and peppered with mosquitoes).  Before we set foot on the driveway of our old home, we feel home.  Our bones know it when we are there, that this smells like home, because this part of home (if we left it to live somewhere else), we can only  experience by returning.  Breathing it in allows us to visit memories and experiences that otherwise very likely remain dormant and invisible even to ourselves. 

But for whatever the reason, the Texan in me wouldn't let go of the image and his words.  The Texan in me?She got mad.  It very likely proves the poster's point by responding but in all honesty, I'd prefer he allow each person from the Lone Star State to step forward and remove all doubt of their idiocy, rather than paint with a broad brush. So I'm stepping into it and forward by speaking back, by speaking up. 

If he didn't presume, if he got to meet even the person sporting the bumper sticker, he might find Texans, even misplaced ones, are friendly to a fault, laugh louder than most, love a good story, good food and a fair shake. 

Perhaps he'd tell me that's stereotypical too.

Most misplaced Texans (self included) put that sort of bumper sticker on their car as sort of a lament for the air of home.  Texans put those stickers on their car possibly because they'd prefer not to be surrounded by people that write them off as stupid because of how they talk and where they are from. Maybe they'd prefer to be with people who enjoy a good story, good food, a fair shake and laugh louder than most.  Maybe we miss something of that air, of that culture that did not presume we as individuals were idiots until we stepped forward and somehow proved it. 

I know there are plenty of smart Texans across this land.  I also know I may have just proved conclusively and permanently, (seeing as it's my blog and it's now on the Internet forever), I am not one of the smart ones.

So because it is Face book and just a bumper sticker that someone found amusing for different reasons than I would, I'd just like to invite the good professor to consider allowing himself to meet a few more of us.  We'll probably say some things you wouldn't, but we'll also probably surprise you.  I find that all humans do surprise each other if they take the time to break bread and  tell their stories; we are all poorer, dumber, weaker and more injured than we ever wish to let on, but we also are brighter, kinder and hold more wisdom than we ourselves imagine.  And we all sometimes show greater charity than previously presumed and also allow ourselves to snark more than we ought.

All of that comes out in conversation over beer or coffee or pie or barbecue much better than bumper stickers or even blogs.   I also know humor is subjective and sensibilities can be overly nursed to the point of being absurd which this probably has.

But I'm better now. I've said my piece in response to his and if I ever see a bumper sticker in the Lone Star State, "Misplaced Rhode Islander," I promise not to jump to negative or derogatory conclusions about the smallest state in the union missing a person.  I'll guess that person is missing something of the air of home that can't be found anywhere else but the place with the state motto "Hope" and ask to hear about what that person misses so much.

Then I went and reread the post that had provoked so much.  I saw it was a joke on the phrase, because it said, "Somewhere in Texas, a villiage is missing....the person who owns this vehicle."   I must have reread that post four times, checking for a mispelling, for an incorrect rendering of the Texas flag, anything to give the benefit of the doubt before sounding off and still missed it.  I missed the mark. 

Guess Beaumont is minus one idiot...and for the record, with all humility and laughing at myself for my myopia, "I'm very sorry professor, mea culpa and the crow tastes delicious."

When Hillary and Barrack Kiss and Make Up, the Place's the The Thing!

Oh, the symbolism of it all moves me to near tears.

Hillary and Obama, together in the town of Unity, embraced, showing forgiveness. All is well. Surely, because we see it on television, it must be true.

What is not known is that Unity was chosen after several other towns were struck from the list of possibilities wherein this historic meeting of the titans for peace could take place.

Hell for Certain, KY: It wasn’t frozen over so it got dumped pretty quick.

Desperation, Ohio: The McCain camp had booked it for a youth rally.

Defeated, TN: Hillary camp said no way.

Sour Grapes, MI: The Other Half of the Delegates threatened to show up and ruin the mood.

Hope, Ark: The citizens of this town have suffered enough.

Bullhead, AZ: The township’s monicker strikes a little close to the bone. Ditto for
Squabbletown, California, The X, Mass, and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

Still, Hillary urged her supporters to vote for Barrack and I for one, could feel the love. I mean, I’m sure she feels as much when she’s around Bill.

Obama for his part, acknowledged that maybe mentioning that he’d remodel the bowling alley to make a basketball court was a bit premature. After all, he does need to work on that game. He also promised never to mention Erkel again. It just brings out the heebie jeebies in voters everywhere.

He also explained that the mock presidential seal that had appeared in front of his podium, was the result of a vast right wing conspiracy designed to portray him as an aloof argula eating Harvard educated lawyer with only 2 years Senate experience who thinks there are 57 states. "Just remember," urged his supporters, "he’s unstoppable, he’s beautiful, he can do no wrong."

The happy couple has stops planned in the coming weeks at No Mirage, California, Utopia, Florida, Neverfail, Tennessee, and Allgood, Alabama.

Bill was sent on a separate good will tour. He plans on stopping in Lovely Ladies, New Jersey, and some other places that actually exist but this is just not that type of blog.

P.S. All these towns exist except for two.

Tune in next week when we discuss theme music. Just as the Clintons in 92 asked for a leap of faith with their song, "Don't Stop Believing," Obama currently is in search of a song that will convey the promise of perfection without getting nailed down on any pesky specifics.

Nominations for the theme song of the presidential campaign include "Don't Worry, Be Happy," "The Candy Man," and the Coca-cola theme from the 70's commercial, "I'd like to buy the world a coke." These express best, the DNC's current platform and policies for macroeconomics, universal health care and take on foreign policy matters and issues of homeland security.