Love in a Dangerous Time

How many times have you heard someone try to stand in the way of work to end poverty by saying, “The poor will always be with us”? It’s as if they are saying that God wants a certain percentage of us to be living in poverty. We have heard quite a bit of this in the last few months, over the Trump budget proposal, and the various versions of trump’s healthcare (or maybe we should call it “Wealthcare” proposals.

Our guest today is the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. Dr. Theoharis is the co-director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice, which is a part of Union Theological Seminary in New York. She is also the co-chair, with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, of the Poor Peoples’ Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival, which is reviving Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor Peoples’ Campaing, and picking up where he left off fifty years ago. Her twenty-five year of activism, fighting poverty and homelessness, have brought her into contact with that difficult portion of scripture many, many times.

Her new book, Always With Us?: What Jesus Really Said About the Poor, is partly a very detailed and enlightening Bible study, and partly a call to Christians to take seriously Jesus’ “good news to the poor.”

The Poor People’s Campaign

@LizTheo

Related Sojourners article:  Fifty Years After the Poor People’s Campaign, Another Call for Moral Revival, by Liz Theoharis  (Click Here)

Lovers! In this episode, you’ll meet the newest addition to the Love in a Dangerous Time team. You may know Singer/Songwriter Kristen Leigh. Russ did an episode with her in February of 2016 (episode 54) where she talked about her music and her thinking on music and arts in the Church. Well, now she’s the co-host of Love in a Dangerous Time.

In this particular episode, where Kristen makes her podcasting debut, we talked with Jeff Clark, who is the President of the Board and the producer of the Wild Goose Festival. And – even better – we recorded this episode at the Wild Goose Festival, in the Goose Cast Tent.

In this conversation, we talked about the history of the Festival and what lies ahead. We had a chance to see the vision that propels Jeff and the team that puts the Goose together each year. And we hear a lot of great stories from this genuine Southern raconteur.

www.WildGooseFestival.org

www.KristenLeighMusic.com

On Easter Sunday of this year (2017) I arrived at Canticle Farm (www.canticlefarm.org), an urban food growing and spiritual center in Oakland, California. I was a little early for the service and I couldn’t find anybody. I had been told by my friend Daniel Schindleman-Schone, that they would have a meaningful, alternative service. I was visiting the San Francisco Bay Area, my 37-year home, and this sounded good to me. As I was standing on the front porch, knocking on the front door, a man in monk’s robes and a few others arrived for the services. The monk held out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Louie Vitale.” Well my jaw dropped. THE Louie Vitale was standing on this porch with me. All of my activist life, I’d heard of his leadership and activism in the great causes of Peace and Nonviolence. And here he was. And here he is now, Lovers, on this very special episode of Love in a Dangerous Time.

For centuries, Catholic priests have found their way into the most challenging and dangerous projects of the Holy Spirit. Where would we be without the towering contributions of John Dear, Gustavo Gutierrez, Roy Bourgeois and Daniel & Phil Berrigan?

One who stands in that line is Father Louie Vitale.  Louie is a Franciscan priest who has been at the center of anti-war, liberationist, nonviolent activities for most of his 85 years. He is among the founders of School of the Americas Watch, The Nevada Desert Experience, Pace e Bene (www.paceebene.org), which promotes nonviolence through training, publishing and actions. He spent years working to end the Vietnam war, and with the United Farm Workers in their fight for security and dignity of farm workers.

We speak with Louie about his long life of service and struggle on the occasion of the publication of Love is What Matters: Writings on Peace and Nonviolence, a collection of Louie’s writings over the decades, many of which were penned in jail.

As we look at the work of the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, we like to admire people like Fr. Louie, who fight on so selflessly, but a life lived like Louie’s must cause us to ask ourselves, “What should I be doing?”

Louie has been arrested over 400 times.  (What the hell have I done….?)

In 2012, Louie was given an honorary doctorate from Catholic Theological Union, in Chicago. After two other honorees gave their scholarly, inspiring, acceptance speeches, it was Louie’s turn. He strode to the microphone and said, “I’ve discovered in my life, that love is what matters in the end. And all that I can say is, ‘I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.’” Needless to say, he brought the house down.

One little tip for you, Lovers. Listen to this episode sitting in front of a mirror.      I’m just sayin’.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Vitale

About a year ago, I interviewed Rabbi Steven Blane, mostly about his online Sabbath services every Friday night. Pretty interesting stuff. We mentioned that Steve is also a singer-songwriter, and has some albums out there. In the time since that interview, he’s come out with two new albums. Both fantastic. So this episode features the music of those albums and we talk about the music business, spirituality in music, and the arts scene.

Rabbi Steve’s website:  http://www.stevenblane.com/

Weekly Shabbat:  http://simshalom.com/

Lots of us, both Black and white, who live in the north and the far west, actually believe that the gains of the civil

rights movemen

t actually did the deal, and that now we live in a country where racism is pretty much under control and that the situation is getting better every year. For about ten years now, New York Theological Seminary (NYTS) has lead a pilgrimage to the American South, to give northerners the experience of being in a racist zone, that’s not – while some important victories have been won – significantly more enlightened or democratic (or safe, or fair, or uplifting…..) than it was in the 1950s. The tour included students, faculty and clergy plus some individuals who just wanted to be part of it. Organized by The Rev. Dr. Eleanor Moody Shephard and The Rev. Dr. Peter Heltzel, both of NYTS, the trip covered some of the most important sites of the Civil Rights movement and present-day struggle.

Back in April, I went to Peter Heltzel’s birthday party, which turned out to be on the evening of the day they returned to New York. I spent some time with two people who had been on the trip, and they were absolutely breathless with excitement about what they learned and how they could see it affecting their lives.

Well, Lovers – these two are my guests today. Michelle Alexander, MD is a physician in New York, and Bishop Dr. Raymond Ruffen-Blanchette is one of New York City’s most active progressive clergy. Both of them came back with a whole new vision.

Let’s go, Lovers. And after you hear it, send the link to your friends.

For a year or so, we’ve had a series-within-a-series, called Conversion(s) it’s basically people’s journeys though life as a person of faith. We’ve had some interesting stories. Today’s story is one of the most interesting.

Rev. Dr. Karyn Carlo has had quite a journey. She is a retired New York Police Department cop, who attended Union Seminary, here in NY, when she retired, and stuck it out till she got her doctorate. Her life and faith have always been developing, but she has now become a full-on supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement – a fact that angers many of her former colleagues in the NYPD. Her story is of someone who has always tried to listen to the call of God.

We’ll talk about her early stance against the Vietnam war, her recruitment (at a karate dojo!) into the NYPD, her training work in the police force, and her current fierce focus on justice over reconciliation in these times of police murders of Africa

n American people. Karyn is an example of life-long engagement with her faith, letting it lead her to develop along the way. And her conversions, as we will see, are not only difficult emotionally, but often have carried with them ostracism and even death threats.

This is a special episode of Love in a Dangerous Time, Lovers. You’ll want to take notes.

Karyn’s Blog:

Fixin’ to Preach – look for series called “Dear White People” (www.karyncarlo.net)

It’s been a long time since my last episode. Back to November, actually. I wonder what could have made it hard for me to get it together. Maybe it was the shocking news that it CAN happen here. I have to say, I was no great fan of Hillary Clinton; and really no fan of Obama. They both have proven track records of war mongering, for Pete’s sake. After all, regardless how likable the president of the US is, the job is to be the CEO of an empire, and I hope we all agree that empires are bad. But with this past election, we have been forced to look into the abyss. To see the potential for massive repression, the fomenting huge waves of hate, vicious poverty, and yes – fascism. All of that took a little wind out of my sails. Take all that and add to it a new job and you get a long hiatus!

But lately, I’ve been getting antsy about doing another episode. Lots of ideas are coming forward. So I’m back in the saddle, and I’ll be back to looking at some new books and albums, bringing some stories about people’s conversions along life’s way, and of course, exploring the apparent disintegration of the institutional church.

So we’re back with a really good one. Matthew Fox has for many years been a leading prophetic theologian. His thirty some-odd books include, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, Original Blessing, The Reinvention of Work, and several books on the Christian mystics, like Hildegard of Bingen, and Meister Eckhart. In addition to his writings, he is the founder of The University of Creation Spirituality, and the creator of the Cosmic Mass. He also hosted a radio interview program called Spirit in Action, which I had the honor of producing at KPFA-FM in Berkeley, CA.

A few weeks ago, I noticed an open letter he wrote to House Speaker, Paul Ryan, on his blog. In the letter, he tells, Speaker that he is concerned for his soul. I called Matthew to suggest we record an interview, and he suggested we also take a look at two recent books that overlap. The first is A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, in which he explores the overlap between himself and the prophetic monk of the 1960s, Thomas Merton, and how both Fox and Merton were heavily influenced by thirteenth century mystic, Meister Eckhart. The other is a beautiful

book called Stations of the Cosmic Christ, which he co-wrote with Marc Andrus, but it’s also a collaboration with artists M. C. Richards and Javier Lemus. This is a guide into spiritual practices for our age.

And by the way, now is the time to go to the Wild Goose Festival website (WildGooseFestival.org) and start to make your plans to attend this year. It happens July 13-16, in beautiful Hot Springs, North Carolina, and it’s one of the most important gatherings of progressive, free-thinking, committed Christians in the country. Once again, I’ll be hosting the GooseCast tent, where a dozen podcasters will record live episodes. It’s really a gas. Check it out.

Matthew Fox’s author page on Amazon (click HERE)

Paul Ryan letter (on Matthew’s blog): http://www.matthewfox.org/blog/a-priestly-letter-to-speaker-paul-ryan-1

Click on book cover picture to buy on Amazon (and support Love in a Dangerous Time.net)

 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’  (Matthew 22:37-39)

Hi, Lovers. And welcome to Love in a Dangerous Time. I hope that each of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving table is so often the scene for family warfare, or impersonal mass feeding. It’s always been a goal of mine to have fantastic conversation, and I think we did it again this year.

Today we’re going to talk with some church folk who are deeply involved in helping the people who are forced to relocate, to other countries, to avoid crashed economies or the crashing down of brutal governments and the wars that they inflict on us. In the American Southwest and in Germany, some folks who are active in their denominations have been leading in this area, even to the extent of creating and building the Sanctuary movement.

The group, which doesn’t have a name, consists of three Lutheran clergy, who live in Berlin, one retired and one active Presbyterian pastors, who live in Arizona and New York City, and a member of a multi-faith intentional community at the Stony Point Conference Center in upstate New York. All of these people have experience working on immigrant issues and the Sanctuary movement.

They’ve been meeting, on Skype, for over a year to draft a statement that can be passed by denominations and other religious and secular organizations that spells out the problem, the moral issues involved and the measures that must be taken for the world to meet its moral obligation. I have been honored to join those meetings as the tech guy, making (well, usually making) Skype work for us.

So this episode is a report to our communities on the progress of the group. And Lovers, this report is for you too.

In the recent election, some pretty horrible things were said about immigrants and some draconian control measures were proposed. It’s very important that people of faith jump into this argument stand for the loving our neighbors, especially when they are in such need. There’s a lot to do, Lovers.

Please give this episode a good listen, read the final document and then take it to your faith community to mobilize as many as possible to take action on this crisis issue.

Then come back and leave a comment on LoveInADangerousTime.net, by typing in our comments section of leave a voice recording using the SpeakPipe feature on the right hand side of each page. Or you could go to Facebook/LoveInADangerousTime and join the discussion on our community page. The important thing is to hear the ideas of as many people as you can, and to express your own insights.

Lovers. We need to talk and act! Let’s go.

Here is the link to the Presbyterian website, with their comments on the document.

Hey, Lovers – Here’s the second round of Rev. Donna Schaper’s reporting from the Climate Summit. Our thanks to Religion Dispatches, for permission to include them here.

The Climate Summit is a huge meeting, in Marrakesh, Morocco, that is following up on the progress of the Climate Treaty that came out of last year’s summit and to ponder the future in a world with Donald Trump as US president. When he takes office, on January 20, President Trump will be the ONLY head of state who does not believe in human-made climate change.

Below are two dispatches from Rev. Donna. More tomorrow. Go to facebook,com/LoveInADangerousTime to join the discussion.

Hi, Lovers – This episode is number one in a series of reports from Rev. Donna Schaper. You can hear more about her work and her church, Judson Memorial in New York City, by clicking on Episode LDT078. In this episode, Rev. Schaper is sending her insights and experiences she’s having at the U.N.-Sponsored COP22 Climate Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, right now, in the middle of November.

The recording on this page is her introduction to the project, which she shared with us in Episode 080. So listen to the recording and then you can read the text below. Our thanks to the wonderful blog site, Religion Dispatches, for permission to present Donna’s reports.