Canticle of the Turning
Lyrics: Rory Cooney
Music: Irish Traditional, Star of the County Down
My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great, And my spirit sings of the wondrous things that you bring to the one who waits. You fixed your sight on the servant’s plight, and my weakness you did not spurn, So from east to west shall my name be blest. Could the world be about to turn?
Refrain:
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears,
For the dawn draws near,
And the world is about to turn.
Though I am small, my God, my all, you work great things in me. And your mercy will last from the depths of the past to the end of the age to be. Your very name puts the proud to shame, and those who would for you yearn, You will show your might, put the strong to flight, for the world is about to turn.
Refrain
From the halls of power to the fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone. Let the king beware for your justice tears every tyrant from his throne. The hungry poor shall weep no more, for the food they can never earn; These are tables spread, ev’ry mouth be fed, for the world is about to turn.
Refrain
Though the nations rage from age to age, we remember who holds us fast: God’s mercy must deliver us from the conqueror’s crushing grasp. This saving word that our forbears heard is the promise that holds us bound,’Til the spear and rod be crushed by God, who is turning the world around.
In the last few years we have been hearing about our need to consume less, save resources, recycle, drive less, or not drive at all. Well, we are finally doing it and what happens, our neighbor looses his job. Now we read reports that we are saving our way right into an economic depression. I am not an economist, but I think less consumption, fewer cars, and more savings is the way to go accompanied by increased productivity. Maybe other countries will want what we produce and we can pay off the debt we have accumulated. Yes, the adjustment will be difficult but long term we may be better off in terms of energy independence, community building, and more durable products. Instead of a throw away society maybe we can build one on the more permanent things. Small is beautiful.
This story reports that the NYC Department of Homeless Services is telling churches not to shelter the homeless during the coming deep freeze. Instead, the city wants the homeless to go to the municipal shelters. The story is brief so it seems there must be more to the story. If the report is accurate, in my opinion, the city’s decree violates the civil rights of homeless people to sleep in a church, if it is available to them. It also violates the right of people of faith to practice hospitality as instructed by their tradition. The reason I bring this up is that I believe churches have abdicated much of the social witness of the past, including providing homes for abandoned children and old people. We have left many social problems for the government to deal with. Churches willing to shelter homeless people seems to be one of the last visible sign of an active social witness.Otherwise, our church buildings are often empty.
My friend Jennifer Goodson alerted me to this site. I think it’s a powerful illustration of the interdependence of all people and why 600 million girls matter.
This story from the New York Times discusses how dermatologists are increasingly more interested in their Botox clients than patients with real skin diseases. With a world health crisis and many here at home with no health insurance, it’s decadent for physicians to devote themselves to people’s vanity instead of real suffering. But I guess in a day of glitzy media, old and unattractive is its own form of suffering.
I’m in shock over the price of food. This week I paid over $7 for a gallon of organic milk. The increase in food prices is a global crisis, which I am afraid will outlast the mortgage crisis. See this article about a recent UN report. High food prices aren’t due to our inability to produce enough food. It’s because good land is being turned from growing wheat, barley, and hay to corn for the production of innocent sounding biofuel. We are burning our land in our cars! Global markets are addicted to fuel and the price is more hunger.This strikes me as a problem of food justice, and I consider it immoral to use good productive land for fuel.
When I was a child, my parents would pray before they went to the grocery store so God would stretch their food dollar to last all week. I was never hungry. Yet, I was left with an awareness when I go to the grocery store that not everybody can afford that $12 roast. Higher food prices mean that for the first time many of us will take the bread multiplication miracles of Jesus seriously. Where might we see the need for such a miracle and what is our part in it?
Check out this story about the abuse of a domestic servant. This a why we need to know who is in the country. We can’t protect people we don’t know are here. Women, I suspect, are more hidden than the day laborers standing on the street corner.
Another story in the New York Times about surrogate mothers. This time it’s poor Indian women earning their living by renting their wombs to affluent westerners. The industrialization of human reproduction dehumanizes everyone involved. Talk of rights, choice, and economic necessity are code words that the affluent use to exploit the weakest members of the human race, poor women and children. The view of women in many third world regions allows them to be thought of as little more than a communally owned natural resource. The dignity of all people remains in peril. Yes, it’s dismaying and depressing to think that we live in this kind of world.
I don’t keep up with movies as they are released. I haven’t seen the inside of a theater in many months so I’m relegated to waiting for the DVD. Here are two recent movies that I think are worth seeing.
The Devil Came on Horseback, a documentary about the Darfur genocide. This was very good in helping me understand the politics of a problem that sadly seems to have played it self out only in the media.
The Nannie Diaries, I admit this is not great cinema, but it remains social commentary nevertheless. Light, but touching, entertainment that questions the social climbing values that Americans hold. Plenty of gender and class issues to feed a conversation.
Once, Excellent little sleeper film where contemporary people actually behave honorably. Good music too!
Happy New Year! More to come in 2008.
I have been thinking about how to best comment on the wild spending spree our society goes into at this time of year. I could point out the cultural belief that we can shop our way to happiness, the loss of meaning in the Christmas season, or how a green consumer is an oxymoron. In some way all these observations sound too familiar. Today, I got my Heifer International shopping catalog. Instead of selling me something to impress a friend, it challenges me to give a cow to a woman, a child, or a displaced man. It’s a simple idea. Provide people in underdeveloped parts of the world the chance to make a living and feed their families through a gift of livestock. What really brought it over the top for me was this:
“In most of the developing world, it is women who have the primary responsibility for feeding their families. The task of harvesting and preparing food, finding water, cooking and even tending to family farms are primarily the obligations of women…in fact, it is estimated that in Africa, women are responsible for 80-90 percent of the total food production. Yet women own just one percent of the world’s land.”
Additionally, I’m a believer in localism. That’s the idea that what works best is what is closest to the people. For us living off big-box stores, livestock is the furtherest thing from our minds. To many people in the world a cow, a sheep, or even a hive of bees can mean the difference between starvation or abundance. Think about giving the gift of God’s abundance. It’s a great way to support micro-enterprise and acknowledge God’s greatest gift.
