Is Naboth not all our children? Resisting insisting? Upon surrendering ancestral inheritance? People + Land = Promised Land! Liberated Zone! Midst of all occupied territory; piece of the action, stake in the game, Earth herself holding what hope remains for us all, joint heirs of God, every member, every species -- how dare we suffer the children to be Jubileeless?
Merely conveniencing Ahab, our vineyard next door for his vegetable garden -- his Manifest Destiny, Eminent Domain, Fair Offer -- all at "Cash Value?"
This land is our life! It is who we are. It is what we do. Linking us with all Earth.
Indigeneously impoverishing, polycratically dispossessing, kings dooming own kingdoms, too much "Good Fortune," borrowed well-being of everyone else - as if any saved without sharing!
Bishop Camara: "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I also ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." Faith about insistent asking, the way to our practice, orthopraxis, freedom not from but for others. While all systems of vested interest exclude to excruciation: "Where will our precious freedom be then," Paul asks, one broken world just wanting to know . . .
"The free spirit is incompatible with selfishness," with limiting ways we love one another, with limiting selves to selves, with fearing everyone else must be against us, out to take back what we call "ours," in effect stolen from all without "theirs." Loving others as selves? As addicted to selves? To those nearly "like us" as possible? And all it requires to keep us that way?
Little wonder still learning war so well, our trouble and training to do it so often, costing us more than all nations combined -- pretending by other names, justifications, any less driven by who profits most? Idealized nations, self-made exceptions, excuses for wars? All along nation-state, nation-mind lines?
"My hope: that young generations demand end to war, that your generation do something not done in history: wipe out national boundaries separating us from other humans on Earth." (Howard Zinn)
Hmmmm . . . wiping out national boundaries . . . sounds like job for a Flood! "Wickedness of humankind, great in the earth, every inclination of thoughts of their hearts only evil continually?" No sorrow like that of Creator despairing of hope in Creation. "Only God has authority to end life on this planet. All we have is power." (William Coffin)
Even world without weapons not world without war -- but what better place to begin? Making wars cease to the Ends of the Earth? Breaking bows, shattering spears, turning to plowshares, to pruning hooks? Removing all gain from arming to kill? "We can no more win a war than we can win an earthquake." (Jeanette Rankin)
New peoples, nations wracking with labor pains now, conceptually birthing, challenging not by numbers, even by very existence per se; but by peripheralized vision, by amplified voice, every last one, whatever size, whatever age, extensively seen, exhaustively heard. Nationhood, peoplehood organized, institutionalized, without flagrant nationalism? Less globalization, one size fitting all, than glottalization, every size finding, keeping voice of its own?
"The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will." (Czeslaw Milosz)
Ark of Noah, World House of Dr. King: To pray is to build your own house. To pray is to discover that Someone else is within your house. To pray is to recognize that it is not your house at all. To keep praying is to have no house to protect Because there is only One House. And that One House is everybody's Home . . . That is the politics of prayer. And that is why truly spiritual people are always a threat to politicians of any sort. They want our allegiance and we can no longer give it. Our house is too big. (Richard Rohr)
Too big for anyone to be left out!
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