Activism and Faith/A Scoundrels Refuge

Recently I was net surfing- just putting in names of people that I used to know and seeing what is up with them.

and up came Cathy Breen's name.

Cathy is one of the people who I have known in my life who had a profound impact and who remains an important image for me .

I met her in Cochabamba, Bolivia when I was a Franciscan Lay Volunteer from 1993-1995. She is the real deal. She truly lived with the people- advocating for people and challenging the structures that oppressed their lives. She was also a prophetic person someone who channeled the prophetic radical Christ that way Martin Luther King did- by challenging the power of oppression non violently and prophetically.

I recently read that Cathy was a witness for peace in Baghdad, living with the Iraqi people during the recent war- being with them while we destroyed their nation to fulfill W's oedipal problem. Cathy is a prophet and is the best image of the prophetic radical Jesus that I have ever met. and GW has never met.

The real issue in this election is the question of faith- which God do we want to have ruling our affairs? The prophetic radical God that is embodied byJesus, Martin Luther King, Cathy Breen, Dorothy Day, and Gandhi or the Small petty violent God embraced by George Bush, there is only a difference of degrees between Fundamentalisms the mentality is "I have all the answers"

But in reality Fundamentialism is easy it does not require real sacrifice- it requires following rules, - The reality is that real faith and real belief are not what Fundamentalists want
because that would challenge power and that is not their goal. So we spend our time talking about a 'personal Jesus' which is one line in the Bible and then we ignore the hundreds of passages that call for us to live radical lives of service and social change.

Why don't George Bush and his friends live the Gospel? Because there is no money in it. The Gospel requires radical change- giving all to God by being in service to our neighbor-not killing our neighbor-loving our neighbor and making our neighbor our brother or sister.
But George Bush and his friends are not Christians, unless the Trinity is Power-Money and Greed. They put on the Christian clothes to dupe the comfortable and salve their hearts with lies. The Bush Jesus is comfortable playing Golf, being housed in a Mega Church he is not the Jesus who hung on the Cross.

Jesus was a revolutionary pacifist as was Buddha, Gandhi -they did not call us to be comfortable they called us to be radical. When I begin to hear GW's Fundamentalist claptrap I ask one question, why is the Sermon on the Mount ignored? How can these people who have caused so much pain and death call themselves "christians".

Why is radical love that Jesus preached ignored?

Because they are not Christians they are fakers.

I think that Jesus will vomit them out of his mouth. " Get away from me you Hypocrites" " when I was hungry you gave me no food, when I was naked you gave me no drink" Now to the fires with you.

So I look at Cathy Breen, in awe of the truth, that we should do more and live prophetic lives of radical non violence and make that our testament to the millions who die every year from Fundamentalisms of all kind rather than more war, more violence and more death.