George of Sylvania

Tag: palestine

  • Bitter is the Mouth

    Bitter is the Mouth

    About six months ago, I purchased a bottle of Absinthe because, for some unknown reason, I thought it was a good idea. It had been at least a decade since I had tried it, and it did not go down very well. The wormwood in the drink, if you have never had it, leaves an incredibly bitter taste in your mouth if you don’t mix the properly. The other day, as I sat drinking my morning coffee, I was wondering what mixture of mouthwash/seltzer water/whatever I had that is now leaving this similar taste in my mouth.

    That’ll flavor combination will wake you up.

    As I am sipping this, I have been working my way through the prophet Amos in my morning quiet time. This reading of the prophet has been compounding some outlying frustration. A genocide has been broadcasting in real time, in spite of murdering journalists, in Palestine for those of us paying attention. Children, and people of all ages have been intentionally starved, and the footage of it will leave a mark. Kids, and others, have been murdered while waiting in line for water, food, etc. The intentional cruelty, and war crimes committed is an abomination.

    So reading through Amos, seeing this massacre play out in real time over the past 18 months and all of it taking place in the region the prophet is talking about has brought a new flavor to the text. For about a week, Amos 5:7 (NIV) has had its claws in me, “There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground.” I have been meditating on this, and it has like a stick in my craw, but I couldn’t figure out why.

    There is the obvious tug at what Amos is saying on face value, but I decided to check out the Apostolic Polyglot, an interlinear literal Greek-English of the Christian Bible. When I read it, and it made no sense, I looked to the New Oxford Annotated Bible. It is just a fancier version of the New Revised Standard Version, which reads:

    “Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground!”

    There it is, the stick in my craw.

    The verse in the New International Version was too nice for me. Bitterness can be a variety of things. I love lemons, and they can be bitter as hell. But you know what, wormwood will make almost anyone gag!

    Every time we read or see what has been happening in Palestine, Sudan, and to the Uyghurs, we should taste wormwood in our mouths.

    Every time we read about those fighting against releasing the Epstein client list, we should taste wormwood in our mouths.

    Every time we see another mass shooting in the news, we should taste wormwood in our mouths.

    Every time we see or hear reports of ICE agents snatching people off of the streets, we should taste wormwood in our mouths.

    Every time we see military personnel being mobilized against citizens, we should taste wormwood in our mouths.

    In fascism, there is no peace. There is no peace without reconciliation. There is no reconciliation without justice. There is no justice in attempting to control others. Control is void of love, and without love, God can be incredibly difficult to find.

    It may seem like nothing, but speaking about what is going on may help wake people up. Going on the record and contacting your representatives is called slow activism for a reason, but it is worth doing. If you have not tried 5 Calls yet, follow the link, and use it for good.

    Everyone has to start somewhere, and I hope the bitter taste in your mouth that the Trump administration has helped bring about in the past eight months spurs you into action.

    Grace and peace.

  • Quick Trip to D.C.

    Quick Trip to D.C.

    Our team with Cindy Buhl

    This past week a few of us from the church I work at, Trinity Episcopal Church, went to Washington D.C. to share our concerns with a few people. These people were Rep. Jim McGovern’s Legislative Director Cindy Buhl, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, and Senior Aid to Sen. Jon Husted, Sean Dunn. Unfortunately, Sen. Bernie Moreno’s office could not supply someone to meet with us. We also met up with members of the Episcopal Public Policy Network; Susie Faria, Lindsey Delks, and Troy Collazo, wonderful people doing incredibly important and hard work.

    At the end of our meetings we provided a summary of our talking points we were able to get to, and some we couldn’t. Below you can read them, along with some pictures from our trip. We look forward to going back in the fall and following up with these concerns.

    EPPN and our team

    LGBTQIA+ support

    The Trevor Project has been an incredible safety net for the LGBTQIA+ community, and the current administration has called to defund this. Trinity Episcopal Church is if not one of, then the most open and affirming Episcopal congregation in Toledo. We see first-hand people who walk through our doors that have been affected by gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination. Removing funding for this lifeline is not only unthinkable but cruel. The administration’s push of a “traditional family structure” as a source of stability and the lament for the lack of childbirth, coupled with the current administration wanting to cut programs like head start is not only confusing but shows they do not actually care for the American family. Queer families have been here from the beginning and will not disappear because this administration chooses to ignore them. With wages low, student and medical debt, cutting programs like head start continues to burden families of all kinds.

    This suggestion of funding cut not only hurts at a federal level, but Ohio House Bill 616, is a slap in the face of history and decency. While we know you work at the federal level, we encourage you to reach out to your fellow legislators at the state level (as will we), to encourage voting against it. We believe reconciliation can only happen when people are willing to have open and honest conversations, and what HB616 offers leads to more pain and ignorance. Our children deserve to know the real history of America, this includes our queer siblings and how we have treated them and people of color, warts and all. Our Christian community is called to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to recognized and serve the dignity in all peoples. Our children deserve better than to be told they do not belong.

    A very tired version of me at the end of the day.

    Medicaid cut concern

    Medicaid makes up 93% of the non-mandatory spending and cuts to this must happen to reach the $880 billion according to the non-partisan Congressional Spending Office. President Trump says Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security will not be touched. How are we to trust this when in a recent interview with Meet the Press he stated he wasn’t sure if he is responsible for upholding the constitution? The truth is, cuts to Medicaid threaten the viability of hospitals, nursing homes to name a few. Every week, we serve a free meal to those who live on the margins to get to know our neighbors. There are real concerns about medical coverage from those who attend, and they run the spectrum of age and race. Part of the baptismal covenant we recite in the Episcopal Church is that with Gods help, we will seek and serve Christ in all peoples. Cutting medical coverage to the most vulnerable amongst us is unacceptable, and we are pleading you to help us uphold this covenant by standing against Medicaid cuts.

    Our team with Rep. Kaptur

    USAID concern

    Ohio Farmer’s Union President Bryn Bird, who farms in Licking County, underscored the importance of USAID’s food commodity purchases on prices at the farm gate:

    “USAID plays a crucial role, not only providing food aid to millions around the world but also directly purchasing grains from Ohio farmers. Our farmers deserve predictable, fair market conditions to plan and grow their businesses. A pause on these programs will only add more uncertainty and volatility to an already challenging marketplace, leaving many Ohio farmers facing an unpredictable season. Ohio farmers are more than capable of rising to the challenge of feeding the world, but they need stability to do so.”

    A shutdown of USAID would also have devastating consequences for the people of food-insecure nations that rely on USAID’s food assistance programs. These programs provide vital nutrition to millions of human beings.  To end these USAID programs with no replacement in sight will at a minimum, lead to increased hunger, malnutrition, and disease in the affected countries, cause the deaths of huge numbers of people worldwide, and could trigger political instability in countries that are already facing food crises.

    As previously stated, every week we host a free meal and see the effects this would have stateside. Prices continue to go up and as we seek to make this breakfast ministry sustainable, it becomes harder as more people cannot afford groceries.

    Future POTUS

    Gun violence concern

    In the summer of 2023 our deacon, the Rev. Meribah Mansfield and Mike Linehan (Community Mission Team Leader at Olivet Lutheran Church in Sylvania, OH) formed the Northwest Ohio Multifaith Coalition to Reduce Gun Violence. This coalition helps to enable faith communities to work collaboratively to reduce gun violence through education, advocacy, and healing. Since its formation, it has grown to involve 41 congregations and more than 200 people throughout the Toledo area. Mike and Meribah met while marching with Moms Demand Action in a community festival parade in June 2023. It was there that the idea of a multifaith coalition began to take shape. Soon after, they began organizing a series of gun violence reduction forums. 

    Five faith-based forums have been held so far on topics including survivor testimonies, legislative action and advocacy training, safe gun storage, and updates on efforts of the City of Toledo’s Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE). Coalition members worked with MONSE to develop Peace in Motion, Toledo’s 5-Year Comprehensive Safety Plan. It includes 42 targeted recommendations to reduce gun violence by fostering safer neighborhoods and creating opportunities for all residents. Gun violence not only continues to be an epidemic in Ohio, but nationwide. 

    Celebration after a long day.

    Immigration and deportation concern

    As of this week, CBS reported the current administration seeks to put into place deals with Angola and Equatorial Guinea to accept migrants. Everything that is going on with this administration’s handling of migrants, legal or otherwise, goes against one of the core tenants of Christianity. To watch over for one’s neighbor, to help the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner, is critical to living out our faith. Not only that, but the way the administration has been going around the courts, and not providing due processes, a constitutional right, flies in the face of what it means to uphold American ideals. 

  • Holocaust Remembrance Day

    Image by pikisuperstar on Freepik

    *This was written before the cease fire in Palestine*

    Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

    Every year, I spend quite a lot of my time in January studying the Holocaust. This comes about in different ways: reading books, watching documentaries, or listening to podcasts. With my love of Jewish roots in Christianity, and seeing how Christians have perpetuated anti-Semitic theology over the past two thousand years, I work very hard not to. Often, because I work in a church in the United States, there are a lot of assumptions I support what is happening currently in nation-state of Israel.

    I do not support ethnic cleansing or genocide in any form. Especially those that my tax dollars are helping to fund.

    This year, instead of focusing on the Shoah (usually what is refereed to as the Jewish peoples experienced during the Holocaust), I’ve branched out to wider accounts of murder and ethnic cleansing.

    One book I finished this month was, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, written by Ilan Pappé. Born in Haifa Israel to parents that fled n*zi persecution in the 1930’s, he is a historian and author. If I had not read a few books on what happened in the 1940’s to the Jewish peoples of Europe, personally, Pappé’s book would not have been as devastating. The tactics described in the book between the Israeli and British forces against the Palestinians will make you sick. There is a lot of similarity to what persecuted European Jews experienced in the mid 20th century.

    Something that really stood out toward the beginning of the book was when Pappé speaks about the history of occupation of Palestine. How, this was something Palestinians were used to. However, for the first time, Palestinians experienced being displaced from land and homes their families had worked and lived on for generations.

    What is happening right now to the Palestinians is unacceptable.

    What happened to European Jews in the 1930’s and 1940’s (as well as pogroms throughout history against them) is also unacceptable.

    What is happening to the Uyghurs in China right now is unacceptable.

    The persecution or mass deaths of any group of people because of their ethnicity or religious affiliation is unacceptable.

    May our prayers and actions remember that today of all days, and those that follow. Be sure to read the prayer by Rabbi David Katz at the end of this.

    If you are interested in learning more about the Shoah, or other instances of genocide, I highly recommend the following (in no particular order):

    The Holocaust: A New History by Laurence Rees

    Shoah: A Documentary by Claude Lanzmann

    Night by Elie Weisel

    Man in Search of Meaning by Viktor Frankl

    A Shortest History of Israel and Palestine by Michael Scott-Baumann

    The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé

    Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account by Dr. Richard Seaver

    On Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé

    The War on Uyghurs: China’s Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority by Sean Roberts

    The Uyghurs: Strangers in their Own Land by Gardner Bovingdon

    We Uyghurs Have No Voice: An Imprisoned Writer Speaks by Ilham Tohti

    A Prayer for Yom Hashoah / Holocaust Remembrance Day
    By Rabbi David Katz

    Ribbono shel Olam – Master of the Universe:

    On this most solemn of occasions, we open our hearts, minds, and souls to you.

    As we remember the six million, the eleven million, the indifference, and the evil;

    As we honor the heroes, the martyrs, the survivors, and the victims;

    We ask you to soothe our souls, to amplify our memories, to strengthen our resolve, and to hear our prayers.

    We ask for your presence in our midst; for healing, light, and love to soothe and ease our pain, as we commemorate the horrors that were committed not long ago. Please, oh Holy One, be gentle with our souls.

    We ask that you help us to forever remember the stories we hear. As tales of the atrocities are shared, as we re-encounter the unthinkable, we ask that these memories be strengthened and never fade, in the hope that those who remember the mistakes of the past will not repeat them. Please, oh Holy One, amplify our ability to remember.

    We ask that you strengthen our will, that you help us to ensure that the world does not again see such monstrosities. We say “never again” and we dedicate ourselves to this principle, to the idea that justice does not allow persecution, that genocide shall not be repeated, and that vigilance is the responsibility of freedom, at all costs. Please, oh Holy One, make manifest our resolve that these horrors remain but memories.

    We ask that you answer our prayers. We pray that the call of evil falls on deaf ears, that those who fight for freedom and justice always prevail, that those who need protection do not become victims. We pray that the lessons we learn from this darkest hour allow all humankind to better itself, and to truly and nobly embody the idea that we are each made in Your image. We pray for the souls of the millions and millions of victims of this brutality; we pray that we honor their lives and their memories by observing this day, and by doing everything in our power and beyond to make sure that no such shadow again darkens our world.

    Above all, we pray for shalom—for wholeness and peace—to be in our midst, now and forever. Please, oh Holy One, answer our prayers and bring us a world devoid of hatred, filled instead with peace.

    Ken yehi ratzon – may this be God’s will. And may we all say together, Amen.