"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness..."
-- Arundhati Roy
The poverty lived by Yeshua is a sign of the Holy One's promise of liberation for the oppressed, the poor, the marginalized, and the abandoned in love and justice. When asked, "Are you he who is to come?" Yeshua answers, "Go and tell what you have seen: the blind see, the lame walk, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them"... a kind of universal health care with the surprise of Love! If the Master practiced health care for the poor, why don't we do likewise?
Essential Reading:
The Sermon on the Mount (for the long perspective)
The Illuminated Rumi / Coleman Barks, Michael Green
One Song / Michael Green
Be Here Now / Ram Dass
Give Me Liberty / Naomi Wolf
Gandhi the Man / Eknath Eswaren
The Grapes of Wrath / John Steinbeck
The Essential Chomsky / Noam Chomsky
The Great Turning / David Korten
People First Economics / Ransom, Baird
Screwed / Thom Hartmann
The Cry of the Poor / Eduard Loring
The Exception To The Rulers / Amy Goodman
Mary Harris, "Mother Jones" to the miners and workers she aided and organized, was born in 1837 in Ireland. Her family emigrated to the United States in 1848. She became a fiery activist on behalf of the workers of this country. She was a staunch union organizer, organizing the wives and children of strikers to demonstrate on their behalf. She also worked to eliminate child labor. She became known as "the most dangerous woman in America." When introduced once as a "great humanitarian", she corrected the speaker with, "I'm a hell-raiser"!
Check out JimHightower.com for another hell-raiser.
What will it take to get you, and keep you, fired up? There's a whole-lotta hell that needs a mighty raising!