I don’t get to deal with very many of those.

–

There is a passage in the Bible that talks about God and the gifts that he gives us.  He says that good parents aren’t mean. That, if their kids come to them and ask them for breakfast good parents don’t hand them poisonous snakes.

Sometimes the Bible is extreme.

I heard a sermon once that talked about that passage.  The guy giving the talk said something like, “So, remember sometimes we don’t get what we want because good parents don’t give their kids snakes.  Maybe the thing you’re asking God for is a snake.”

That lesson has really stuck with me.  Sometimes we pray for things that we only see as good, but might actually be harmful to us– money, power, lovers, comfort.  So, when we aren’t handed those things, we are upset with God about that, but in actuality he might be protecting us.

This is what I am talking about when I say that sometimes Grace and gifts from God can often fall into a grey area.  I’ll share some stories.

–

I once knew a crack-head who got pregnant.  She wasn’t exactly prostituting herself, but  the situation that impregnated her wasn’t entirely consenting and there was some transaction involved.

She dreaded what it meant to have a child.  She knew that as soon as she sought any pre-natal care that she would be cornered and the medical professionals would seek to send her to rehab- something she was not interested in at all.

Eventually, several months into her pregnancy, she miscarried.

I had never had mixed feelings about a miscarriage before, but I did about this one.  On one hand, it is sad that a life was cut short.  On the other hand, I beleive there was a level of grace that delivered that child from being born into that life and having to deal with those struggles.

–

I have a friend who ministers to prostitutes.  She drives around Detroit meeting, getting to know and praying for friends she makes on the streets who are prostitutes.

She was telling me one day that it isn’t uncommon to develop a relationship with those women for months, then finally they accept Jesus in their lives and decide to follow him.  Once they do, however, she says they die pretty quickly.

For instance, for about three months they’d been talking with Rita.  Rita was tall, beautiful and smart.  These qualities made her intimidating to the other women on the street but also made her more popular among clients.  Rita was confrontational and somewhat combative when it came to faith, but was otherwise a joy to be around.

One night she found Rita on the street and she was crying.  Rita was crying because she’d had a dream about Jesus the night before and needed to talk about it.  Rita and my friend talked about Jesus, prayed together and Rita accepted Jesus into her life.

She understood that a life following Jesus meant leaving drugs and prostitution, it meant starting all over and likely with nothing.  It meant a long road through rehab, if her pimp didn’t kill her for trying to leave.  She prayed the prayer, sighed under the burden of the long and hard road ahead of her and started walking back to her drug house to explain to her pimp that she was out.

With tears of happiness in her eyes she knocked on the front door of the house.  Just then, a car drove by, spraying the house with bullets, including one that hit her in the back, killing her instantly.

“Oh, that’s terrible!” I said as my friend was telling me this story.

“Is it?”  she asked.  “She had Jesus and she was spared the long hard road that rehab would have been and detox would have been and trying to realign her economy and trying to stay clean for the rest of her life.”

“God won her then spared her the hard road,” she said. “What a tremendous gift.”

–

I wonder a lot, when things aren’t going “according to plan” whether or not God is just not handing me the snakes I desire.  That’s hard though.  It is difficult to be grateful for those things, but I am trying.

I was out watering some of these window-dwellers yesterday when I noticed something odd.  As I came to every set of plants, each of them was leaning either to the right or to the left, along some imaginary line.  The plants on the porch did this, the plants in the kitchen did this, the plants on the coffee table did this.  They leaned one way or the other, often times there was a line down the middle of their egg-carton planters– one side leaning one direction, the other side  to the opposite direction.

I thought that was odd so I really started trying to figure it out.

Finally, I realized what it was.  Sitting inside the window, the plants can fall into the shadow of the divider between our double-hung windows.  This means, in order to get sunlight all day, the plants had to lean out from behind this divider to catch the sun.

For a plant, sitting in the darkness isn’t an option–it would mean certain death.  The plant will maneuver it’s entire physiology to move toward the light in order to be fed and fulfilled.

But sometimes we’re stuck.  Sometimes we are firmly rooted in a place that is darkness. What then?

Well, oddly enough, when a plant can’t move, guess what can?  The sun.  That’s right.  Sometimes a plant can’t move, but when the earth rocks on its axis, the sun ends up in a different place in the sky.  Often, this results in light shining into places that were once dark.

–

If you’re an Armenian you’d say, “Even nature says you move toward the light.”  If you’re a Calvinist you’d say, “Humans are the only creation to choose to dwell in darkness.”

But no matter which side you’re on in that debate, it is still amazing that darkness or light, God is working to bring us into light.  Sometimes when the plant (or the person) doesn’t (or cannot) move from darkness, God brings the light to you.

And that is an encouraging thought.

People looked  uncomfortable, it was loud and unpleasant to hear and more than anything just made me sad to watch.

Once it was over I took the medicines from her and told her she could go wait in the car, and I would buy the medicine for her.  She walked out and I looked down at the two items in my hand, both of which made similar claims: relieve coughing and last long.  The BudgetQuil had the bonus claim that it would relieve drowsiness.

Looking at both products I began to realize: these are for symptoms only.

There is nothing in either of these products for healing or addressing underlying health issues that might be causing the cough.  They are only for symptoms: coughing and tiredness.

–

I remember talking with my grandmother when I was in high school.  She sat down at the dinner table with a fist-full of pills that she had just dumped from her plastic blue pill calendar that seems to be standard-issue for everyone over sixty.  There were at least 8-10 pills: blue, yellow, white, round, square, gel, capsule.

I asked her what they were for.  She started with one, “This is for my high blood pressure.”

She grabbed another, “But that makes me tired so I take this.”

“That sometimes gives me headaches, so I take this one,” she showed me a third pill.  And so it went.  In the entire stash she showed me three pills that were actually treating issues.  The rest were treating the side-effects and symptoms that the other pills gave her.

–

We are so focused on symptoms that we often call them the problem.  For instance, my girlfriend would say she has “a cough,” but honestly the cough is a symptom of something– a virus, allergies, or something else.

The lines can get blurry between what is the problem and what is a symptom of that problem.

–

Working and living in an area like ours, you see similar attitudes toward issues of poverty and community development.

First, you have many groups who want to do symptom-based work.  Clean-up Days where folks pick up trash, paint the trim on some houses and plant flowers, housing ministries where homeless people are expected to become fully functioning once they have a roof over their heads, or assembly line food kitchens are only addressing symptoms– not the underlying problems.

Second, you wrestle with the most important question: what is the sickness?  Is it poverty, or is poverty a symptom?  Is it self-esteem or is that a side effect?  Is it lack of education?  Is it lack of skills?  What is sickness what is symptom?

–

Is it okay to just treat symptoms?

Should we only focus on sickness?

Of course, the answer to both is no.  A doctor isn’t much of a doctor if he gives you a fever-reducer and doesn’t pay attention to the infection that is causing the fever.  Nor would you like a doctor who set a broken bone without giving you anything for pain.  You have to have both.

But ultimately, we need solutions.  We need sickness-based treatments.  Sickness curing is much more a long-term and intensive work than symptom relief.

One of the cool parts of my job is that sometimes I get invited to interesting things.  For instance, a couple of weeks ago, Transform Pontiac Now hosted an event where the leader of the gang task-force in Pontiac came to talk about the gang issue in the city.  He had some interesting facts, good stories and interesting insights.

He spent some time talking about how gangs go about recruiting their members– mostly guys from 11-14 years old which usually goes something like this:

• Designate a house a “recruiting house”
• Set up game consoles, have good food available.
• Invite neighborhood kids over and let them know the door is always open
• Keep it constantly “staffed” with fun older people who will build friendships
• Tell the kids that this never has to end, they can always live like this.
• From there, slowly introduce the kids into the greater enterprise.

Really, this is genius and their missiology (and that’s really what it is) is outpacing the churches.  We can either reject what they do off hand without giving much thought or credibility, or we can look at their methods and decide if there is something that we’re missing.

Lesson One: Alternatives for Guys

In a city where a tight budget means fewer and fewer activities for teens, kids are looking for something to do.  After a certain age they get bored sitting in front of a televisIon at home.  They start making friends, walking the neighborhood, or rolling with older kids. Urban boredom can be a dangerous thing.  We need to be creating ways to keep teens engaged during the after-school hours, on weekends and especially during the summer.

Lesson Two: Their Door is Always Open

Unless we are willing to be as hospitable as a gang, we’re going to get beat in the battle for the hearts and minds of kids.  It’s just a fact.  If we’re not willing to offer kids a safe place where they can let their guard down and relax, but a gang is, we lose.

Lesson Three: Staffed with Folks Kids Enjoy

Sometimes in churches, community groups, or ministries we don’t see “because you’re weird” as a legitimate reason to keep someone from a position of leadership, but I believe it is.  It is obviously acceptable in every other profession.  There are no ugly models, no blind art curators, no illiterate speech writers.  However, we seem reluctant in church and ministry to disqualify someone who is socially uncomfortable from positions that interface with the public. Gangs put recruiters in these houses who are fun, personable, conversational and easy going– not the socially awkward cross-eyed kid.  He has a role somewhere else, but it is not as the face of the organization.

Lesson Four: Relationship.

These aren’t blind sign-ups.  You don’t join a gang because a stranger came up to you on the street and said, “If you were to die tomorrow, do you know which gang would claim you?”  Willingness to give your life to the cause of such an organization comes from days, weeks, months of seeing how they live, hearing them talk up their life-style and watching how important these relationships are to them.  You see the community that comes with joining and you crave that.

Authentic joining of a faith community is similar.  It is by living among and observing Christians that you see the hope that they have, the community that they have with each other and the world-view that comes with that.  But that only happens if we are willing to let someone live life with us, in our homes, where the door is always open.  If we aren’t willing to do that.  If we won’t give kids the opportunity to experience the community of Christ, then there is a recruiting house nearby that is willing to give them a an opportunity to give them a different experience.

I believe that an aversion to drugs and violence is hard-wired into our souls.  But sometimes we ignore those aversions in exchange for community, which is also wired into our souls.  That decision, to embrace gang culture for a greater sense of community, can only be blamed on common people not being willing to be as present and caring as the gang community.  We cannot expect to compete for a city’s young people if we only see them on Sundays.

I talk to people everyday from all around the country who are struggling in the new post-recession economy that is emerging.

“I have thousands of dollars in college debt…”

“I have a college degree, but can only find grocery-store jobs.”

“I can’t afford to live anywhere but my parents house.”

“I feel like what I am doing isn’t making a difference.”

“I want to start a business but can’t afford it.”

These are common mantras I hear from people my age everywhere.  But, it has not been my experience here in Pontiac.  I’ll tell you why.

The Economics of Homeownership

I left college with a degree that I loved, but which was functionally useless to the world.  I was paralized by the amount of debt I took on to accomplish this and wasn’t willing to take on even more for a master’s degree.  That being the case, my poor employment prospects and negative net-worth really discouraged me when it came to the possibility of owning a home.

When I began looking for a house in Pontiac, I was shocked to find that my preconceptions weren’t accurate at all.  With high vacancy and a crumbled  housing market, the city is ripe for young people to buy houses at low cost, move friends in, and really revitalize neighborhoods.

To illustrate my point, the house that we purchased was a six bedroom, two bath, with two functioning kitchens for $11,000.  We purchased it outright and never had a mortgage to take out.  However, this was in a neighborhood with a lower income than other parts of the city, but our house in the wealthiest part of town will still only run about $40,000– a far cry from the $110,000 it would cost you in any neighboring suburbs.

The Economics of Starting a Business

Starting a business is always tricky, no matter where you go. But, if you’re going to start one, Pontiac is a great place to do it.  The city has already proven it can handle and support businesses in the food-service industry whether those be inexpensive Coney Islands or middle level more swakny restaraunts like Downtown Grille.

Or, perhaps you aren’t looking to start anything in the service sector, but just need office space.  Ottowa Towers, located just downtown, has many openings, is affordable, and easily accessible from the loop.

The basic fact and economics of it is that in business you have to keep revenues ahead of your expenses and with high vacancies and a needful market, renting or purchasing a place is much more affordable in Pontiac than it is in other cities.

But isn’t crime a problem?

The concern for anyone coming to Pontiac seems to always be crime.  But I am going to drop some facts on you.  They are sad, but I think are effective in relieving some fears.

1. Most of the crime in Pontiac is black-on-black and drug related.  Just as with any city hit hard by economic downturns, drugs are a problem in a few of our neighborhoods which leads to gang activity and its related crime.
2. Since switching to Oakland County Police, crime in the downtown area of the city is down 35%, city wide it is down 30%, response time now is five-minutes and Pontiac has more cops per capita than the national recommendation.

These two facts: crime is largely drug related and the city is becoming safer, means that  if you’re an upstanding citizen starting a business in downtown, you will probably never be touched by crime in the city.

You Will Never Be More Appreciated Anywhere Else

Businesses come and go in places like Troy, Rochester, Waterford, Orion.  They live and they die without much notice sometimes.  That is not the case here. Any business that comes in, any positive action is seen by the city as part of their comeback.

For so long all people here have heard is that no one wants to be here, no one comes here, no one thinks this city is worth anything.  But starting a business here and/or moving into the neighborhoods is recognized as over-throwing those stereotypes and changing those attitudes.

Even if people aren’t able to patron your store, they will still drop in and say “hello” and “thank you.” While that doesn’t keep a business afloat, good will is important for anyone.  You’ll get it here.

In twenty years it has lost half of its population and the leak continues.  Many people have never been to a place like that.  Where I come from we are continually seeing new developments, new subdivisions, new restaurants, new shopping places and new construction.

That is not this place.  Our skyline is instead noted for its emptiness, not its activity.  Industrial buildings are empty, commercial buildings are at 1/5 their capacity, and with half of its population gone, every other house is vacant.

But where some see despair, we see opportunity.  High vacancy means that prices are low.  That is the only way we were able to buy a 3,000 square-foot house for $10,000.  That is the only way that a vacant lot is $100.

The city is also not very good at cooperation.  Churches, government, nonprofits, businesses –all of them are pretty bad at working together toward common goals.

In this way, we literally live in a place where a little light goes a long way.  $100 will buy a vacant lot which we can use to beautify a dilapidated neighborhood with the help of other groups and people we’ve made friends with in the city.

When I was in college I’d always say, “How much can my spare ten dollars do?”  The answer, in our case, is a lot.  Here is what we can do with ten dollars:

• $10 is 1/10th of a vacant lot we can turn into a garden.
• $10 is 1/2 of a fruit tree that will feed a neighbor.
• $10 is 3 packages of hot dogs that we can cook for our neighbors in a barbecue.
• $10 is a yard of dirt to grow vegetables in.
• $10 is 20 packs of seeds.
• $10 is our website for a year.

So, if you’ve been reading about our work, if you’ve been out to see our work, or if you think that what we are doing is worth-while and would like to support us, know that it does go such a long way to loving on our neighborhood.  If you’re moved to give, here is how…

Currently our funds are housed at:
Rochester Church of Christ 250 West Avon Road Rochester Hills, Michigan 48307

Checks can be made payable to Rochester Church with Micah 6 in the memo line
All donations are tax deductible and delivered to us in full.

If this is something you decide to do we would be very grateful.  Our calling couldn’t have been answered without much love and support from friends and family who are literally all over the world.

Thank you,

Cole Yoakum

So, when we were given twelve boxes of food by the Rochester Food Bank, we had to decide what our technique was going to be.  As is always going to be the case, we decided that we’d be very intentional and very personal with the folks in our neighborhood.

That morning we arranged the food items in such a way that it was  (somewhat) in logical clusters: pastas, vegetables, cereals, noodles, etc.  From there, it was going to the people we already know in the neighborhood and inviting them over to rummage through what we’d been given.

First was a neighbor and her mother-in-law who sat around and talked to us for a long time before picking up boxes and rummaging through our stash.  The mother-in-law, whom I had never met, talked for us about growing up in Pontiac and how it has changed.  Then she started asking very real questions about why we are doing the things that we are doing: living here, serving neighbors, growing gardens.

Later we brought over another few folks, a mother and daughter and a few others.  Finally, we had knocked on the doors of anyone we knew might be interested.  Though that was the case, there was still some food left over.  We figured that would work itself out some how so we left it on the table and went for a walk.  While we were out walking, our post-lady stopped us.

“I just wanted to say that the things you’re doing in this neighborhood are awesome,” she said.  We talked for a while about the neighborhood, where its going and where it has come from.  We were parting ways, when I turned back around.

“You know this neighborhood better than I do,” I said.  “Do you know anyone who could use some groceries?”

Immediatley she listed off an address for me to try, “88 Rolling Green.  She might not understand, but she could use the help.

Later I jumped in the truck and drove the couple of blocks over to 88.  The address was part of a two-unit duplex.  Kids toys, clothes and dog poop littered the yard.  Most, if not all the windows were broken with plastic covering them, or clothes stuffed through  small missing pieces.  I knocked on the door.

Inside, a dog began to bark.  I knocked again.  The dog barked again, but this time shoved its paw through the mail-slot in the door so that it could look through at me.  Eventually, a lady in her mid-thirties answered the door.

“Yo, hello, whatchu want?” she said quickly and raspy, almost like you’d expect Macy Gray to sound like in conversation.

“Hi” I said.  “My name is Cole. I live over on Newberry street.”  I always say that to let people know I am not some guy coming around bothering people– I live in the neighborhood.  “I was given a lot of groceries and I was just stopping off to see if you needed any groceries for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh whew, you like food Santa, hey! Whatchu say Newberry, wow. This my dog skit scat.”  Each of these was said in the same quick tempo with little inflection, no eye contact. There was no linear thought.  These were all obscure unconnected thoughts. She called me Roland Cole a couple times, that was weird

All of our conversation was this way.  She agreed to come to the house, but refused to ride in the truck, rather climbed in the bed.  She didn’t come in the house, rather paced in front of our house talking to herself and yelling at the neighbors while we made her a box of food.  In that box we also put four scarves in case she needed them in the upcoming cold months.

We took her back to her house and she asked me to bring the box inside for her.  We crossed the threshold of her door and right away the smell was over-powering.  Her dog, as it turned out, was a large pit bull named cinnamon.  Her couches, floor and walls were coated in a thin layer of aged dog poop, obviously because she rarely let the dog outside.  The temperature indoors was the same as out.  Her walls had several large holes in them.  Her floors were made of plywood, not real flooring.

We walked back to her kitchen where she cleared some counter space for me to set the box.  There were no appliances.  Her cabinets were all wide open with nothing inside.

She, along with her dog, shuffled me out the door, said thanks and closed it behind me.

The next day we passed her on the street.  She was wearing all four scarves that we gave her and she waved, yelling “Hey Roland Cole!”

I think of all the things that it took for that relationship to happen.  1) We had to have food donated to us by total strangers in a different city, 2) We had to be out and about in the same window as our post-lady, 3) The post-lady had to have a deep enough relationship with the woman that she knew she could use the help, 4) We had to be willing to go when we were informed of a need.

That is a lot of little things lining up to do something good.  That, in my opinion, is something God puts together.

–

Black friday will mark a year since my grandmother passed away. She had alzheimer’s and, by the time she passed away, had lost all ability to talk, adequately used the restroom, and feed herself.

Alzheimer’s is a bitch.

But as hard as the disease is for those who suffer from it, I think it is harder on the people who are care-takers.  Children watch the parents that they loved and respected forget who they are, where they are or how to use basic body functions.  Alzheimer’s is one of the most frustrating illnesses an elderly person can have so they along with their families are not a welcome sight at nursing home facilitates, rather viewed as a burden.

Care-takers, those children of patients who find themselves in the decision-making role, often without the help or consent of their siblings, are running themselves ragged.  They are constantly torn between: -what is best for my parent, -what can I afford, -I have to update everyone in my family any time something changes.

Care-takers deserve double honor.

–

What is scary about Alzheimer’s is that there is compelling evidence that it is genetically linked. Practically, this means that a care-taker can expect to pass this burden onto their children as they begin to lose their mind and abilities slowly.

–

I’ve heard it said (rather crudely) that Alzheimer’s is the alcohol of the mind.  As you slip further into it you lower your guard, lose your filter and begin forgetting things.  This brings out more of who you truly are at your core.

If this is true, my grandmother was always afraid.  When I was sixteen-years-old I was visiting my grandparents in their small home in northern Arkansas.  I sat in a wooden gliding rocker while my grandmother sat on a couch that was older than I was.  We both stared at the television, set in a wood-grain case that probably weighed as much as I did.

This was somewhat of a ritual when I visited my grandparents, which we did about twice a month.  I would hang out with grandpa for a while and talk fishing and hunting then I would sit in the living-room and watch Soap Operas with my grandmother as she filled me in on what was going on.

“Who are you?” she said after I had been sitting with her about fifteen minutes.

“I’m Coleman… your grandson…” I was confused.

“Are you here to rob me?” she asked, straight faced.  Her eyes were fixed on me from behind her thick bifocals.

“No.  Just watching tv with you.” I said.

“Okay, but I am watching you.”

This was more and more the tone as she slipped further away.  The nurses were after her.  The doctors were after her.  Other people were stealing her things.  She was a very paranoid lady. That was always sad to me.

–

But for all the awfulness that came with her disease, there was good too.

My grandmother had held a grudge against her sister for over 50 years.  My mother, nor her sisters had ever met their aunt who resided in Presque Isle, ME.  They knew she existed, but that my grandmother hated her and hadn’t spoken to her in fifty years.  That is all.

One day, long after she had forgotten me, my mother and even my grandfather whom she had been married to for over sixty years, my grandmother walked into the room.  “I need to talk to Paige.” After doing some digging, they found a number, and in the last days of her life my grandmother would call her sister and talk often.

The disease takes away things that are valuable: memories of your kids, your dignity, your mind.  But it wipes indiscriminately awful things that we might have been trying to forget or submerge under out own power but were unable.

The disease took my grandmother, but returned her to a better place with her sister and when my grandmother passed, a relationship had been restored that would have never been redeemed without it.

–

My friend Jay called me the other day.  Her grandfather is a great man who did so much for her growing up.  He was a kind and gentle man who loved Jesus and his family so much.  He is in the hospital now, and is losing the ability to ingest food, even from a feeding tube.

Her mother, like mine, is about at wits end and is getting ready to make the awful decision of shutting off machines, removing tubes and letting him die slowly but peacefully.

(See what care-takers have to deal with?  That sucks!)

Jay is 700 miles away and can’t get back in time to see her grandfather again before he dies. I hate that for her because my situation was similar: stuck far away, broke, with no way home to be with the people I cared about in all of this.

I hate that.

–

A woman came in to Pier1 the other day looking for anything non-breakable and shiny.  Beads, some necklaces, a bracelet are some of the things this woman found.  Most of it, tacky jewelry.  I asked what it was for and she told me that her mother was in the nursing home with Alzheimer’s and that seeing things like this really excite her mother.

“It is literally the same look as when you hand something like this to a kid.” she said. “Her eyes light up, she laughs, she plays, she twirls.

She is happy again when she has things like this, so this is what I am picking up.  I just like seeing my mom happy.

Leading up to the event, the three of us printed out flyers and knocked on every door within three blocks of our house.  We told anyone who was brave enough to open the door (we did get several people shouting, “I paid my electric bill!”) that we were going to be in front of our house handing out candy.

We stopped by the house of an old friend that I mentioned before.  He answered the door, and asked what we were up to.

“We’re going to be handing out candy at our house tonight.  We’ve also got some friends coming and handing out candy with us.”

He, in a moment of real honesty, said “You know, no one does that, right?”

I asked for some clarification, and he explained “no one trusts this neighborhood enough to let their kids out at night, and no one trusts their neighbors enough to open the door when someone knocks.”

“Well,” I said. “We’re going to do it!”

“I’ll bring my kids over, because I know and like you guys.”

We got the same kind of reaction from people all over our neighborhood.  Many of them said, “We weren’t going to take our kids out, but we want to come.  Is it okay if we don’t have costumes?”

“Totally!”

Our friends from Rochester college pulled up, opened their cars and started getting ready to hand out candy.  Kids trickled in, most without costumes, but all excited for candy.  Parents stopped off, said thanks and walked back home with their kids.

In the end, we probably had the same number of volunteers as we did kids–close to forty.  We had a good turn out on both the volunteer and kid front.  It was a good time had by all and hopefully an event that we can build on in the future as we continue to establish our house as a place of peace in this neighborhood.

• a Christian who loves politics.
• a Restorationist who always sees something appealing about not being involved in politics.
• a social liberal who attended a very socially conservative college.
• a liberationist seeking to love and empower others.
• a southerner living in a northern state.
• a committed pacifist who lives in a place where violence is a daily reality.
• a committed pacifist with parents and grandparents who are all retired from the military.
• a liberal son of conservative parents.

I hope that some of the following thoughts echo to some of you as well who are always struggling to find the balance in your own lives.

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” –Robert Kennedy

[Full Speech is worth a listen]

–

“War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children. The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes – and we must.”

-Jimmy Carter, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

–

“As for poverty, no one needs to be ashamed of it: the real shame is not taking practical measures to escape it.”

-Pericles, 430 BCE

–

“Christians should be committed to the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of America, and the church is to live an alternative existence of love and justice, offering a prophetic witness to politics. Elections are full of imperfect choices where we all seek to what is best for the “common good” by applying the values of our faith as best we can.” – Jim Wallace

–

“But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.” – John Steinbeck in East of Eden

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“Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king… He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants.  Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use.  He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.  When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

“We want a king over us!

1 Samuel 8

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“All the wars and strifes between tribes, races, nations, from the beginning until now, have been the result of man’s effort to govern himself and the world, rather than to submit to the government of God.”

“Every one who honors and serves the human government and relies upon it, for good, more than he does upon the Divine government, worships and serves the creature more than he does the Creator.”

David Lipscomb, On Civil Government

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“…Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.”

Micah 6:8

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“You have to bear witness to the God you know. Hate all injustice. Be enraged about it. Organize to fight it. Join movements of justice. That is the way you fight it.” — James Cone