Re:Vision Dallas Update

Take a moment to check out the video update on the Central Dallas Community Development Corporation's (CDCDC) Re: Vision Dallas project that would entail the sustainable redevelopment of the entire city block immediately behind Dallas City Hall.



Then, while you are at it, check out Charlie Gibson's report on housing in America on a recent edition of the ABC Evening News. Toward the end of the report you'll hear a mention of our project, as well as a quick image of it.



Love your reactions.

Food

Food is important.

I take it that you've noticed that, right?

It is especially important if you find yourself in a situation where it is not available to you or your loved ones.

These days more and more people are coming to us for help with their nutrition needs. Most are from working families. All attempt to make it on very low, inadequate income resources. Some work at more than one job. Many are elderly neighbors and children, beautiful children.

For years we've struggled to provide enough food to these growing numbers of people who need help with their grocery costs. While we have served more people than any other organization in town, we haven't been the leader in quantity of nutritious food products delivered. The leader in Dallas when it comes to pounds distributed and quality of food products is Crossroads Community Services (CCS), an outreach ministry of First United Methodist Church located in Downtown Dallas.

Rev. Jay Cole serves as the Executive Director for CCS. I'm very proud to say that Jay spent time with us at CDM as an intern while at Perkins School of Theology. While he was with us, he taught us more than we taught him!

Jay has developed the most innovative system for food distribution in the city, possibly in the nation. His plan links individual and family food selection to a number of indicators, including family size, lifestyles and health indicators. Jay's system is tied directly to the U. S. Department of Agriculture's new food needs pyramid.

Earlier this year CCS and CDM worked out the details of a collaborative partnership to do even more in response to the food needs of low-income neighbors in Dallas. Some of the improvements resulting from our new connection include the fact that we order food from the North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) together in a joint, collaboration account. Together we are serving more people than we were apart. CDM has adopted the CCS database and reporting model, as well as the food selection methodology and we are now distributing twice as much food product as before we the new relationship.

In the future we hope to develop an expanded network of food distribution sites that link up with smaller organizations across the city in an attempt to cooperate with our partners at NTFB. We are feeling very optimistic about our future.

I'm grateful for CCS and Jay Cole and his entire team. I'm also very thankful for all that Keith Ackerman has done on the CDM side to establish and solidify the new relationship. Of course, none of this would have been possible on our side without the hard work and positive, cooperative attitude of Agapito Perez, the Director of the CDM Resource Center. He has the new, bulked up system working like a well-oiled machine.

We hope to respond to the pressing, extremely important food needs of our neighbors no matter how severe they may become.


If you'd like to help us, give me a call!

Fair Park possibilities

I read with great interest Scott Parks' story on Saturday in The Dallas Morning News reporting on plans to open an entertainment park in Fair Park from May through August in 2012.

Not too sure that I'll be caught in line to ride the new roller coaster, but I applaud Errol McKoy's vision to do something with this grossly underutilized public asset.

McKoy, president of the State Fair of Texas that fills the park in September and October annually for the famous fair, knows something about theme parks and crowd pleasing. He worked for Six Flags Over Texas for twenty years before joining the State Fair in 1987.

My interest is not specific to McKoy's plan.

I just think something needs to be done to maximize and to take advantage of the fairgrounds for the good of everyone, especially those who live in and around the Fair Park community.

Fair Park is owned by the city of Dallas, as in us!

In the organizational scheme of things at City Hall, it is "a division of the Dallas Park and Recreation Department. Located two miles east of downtown Dallas, Fair Park is home to nine museums and six performance facilities, including the Music Hall, Smirnoff Music Centre, Band Shell and the Cotton Bowl Stadium.



This National Historic Landmark has the largest collection of 1930s Art Deco exposition style architecture in the United States located on 277 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds. Special features include the Leonhardt Lagoon, Texas Vietnam Memorial and Smith Fountain.

Over 749,000 square feet of enclosed space can be leased for conferences, exhibits, markets, festivals and sporting events. Over seven million people visit Fair Park annually for ticketed events with 3.5 million attending the State Fair of Texas for three weeks each fall." [information in italics lifted right off of the Fair Park site!]

In my view the park represents a wasted opportunity to create many new jobs; housing of varied sorts, ranging from permanent supportive studio apartments to high-end, upscale condos and town homes to inner-city Art Deco lofts; an entertainment district with band stages fit for a "Texas Music Festival" or something like what I just witnessed in Milwaukee with their "Summerfest;" mixed use retail development that could feed off of the new DART rail stop at the gates of the park; possibly even funky, new urban office space for businesses of all kinds, for-profit and non-profit; sports fields for youth baseball and soccer academies and leagues; and a corporate academic coaching center where DISD students could come after school for mentoring, help with school work, expsoure to higher science and math, and participation in fine arts under the direction of an army of volunteers from our corporate and professional community. Or, how about a minor league baseball team to add to that mix?

Fair Park is a public treasure.

We must not continue to regard it as just the place where the State Fair shows up for a month each year. It could be so much more than it is today. We need to dust it off, call together neighborhood and other community leaders, add new vision and renew it completely for the good of the entire city.

Poverty Meditation

"It's not about charity, it's about justice.
Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die." — Bono

"Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit." — Eli Khamarov

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much...it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“One day our grandchildren will go to museums to see what poverty was like.”
— Muhammad Yunus

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
— Mother Theresa

"The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty."
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil." — Robert Kennedy

"The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life."
— John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"Poverty is the worst form of violence." — Mahatma Gandhi

“You can’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.” — P.J. O’Rourke

A great baseball memory on another July 4. . .

Freedom

Recent, firsthand, eyewitness news reports from Iran via Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sources have been depressing and, at times, shocking.

Citizens expressing themselves and their rights in peaceful, public demonstrations end up caught in terrible violence, cruel beatings, arrest and who knows what else?

As a freedom loving person, it is impossible not to be moved and concerned for our fellow human beings on the other side of the world in Iran.

I know that I take for granted the freedom I enjoy as a citizen of this nation.

I am grateful that our nation is not ruled by a "supreme ruler," an unquestioned religious leader who claims the sanctions of God to justify every action, even those involving brutality and torture. Today, I am most grateful for "the separation of church and state." I am thankful for our open, secular, social fabric that allows each of us to work out our own faith without imposing or being imposed upon by some overriding authority. I am grateful for our forefathers and mothers who saw and understood the importance of such openness of religious expression, including no religious expression at all.

I am praying that the cleansing power of liberty would wash all such madmen away in its powerful wake. I am praying that as a people we might understand again the importance of diversity, freedom of expression and basic human rights.

Today, I am praying for the spread of liberty into places where it does not exist. I am praying for those who in this very moment are making tremendous, painful and dangerous sacrifices for the cause of liberty.

And, I am thankful for what we have in this nation and for the freedom we enjoy that allows us to work hard at making things even better.

There will be celebration today in our home. . .and thoughts for people and freedom around the world.

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"Shift Work"

Hard working people get my attention.

Labor.

I'm an advocate.

Kenny Chesney and Goerge Strait sing it here: "Shift Work."

Works for me!

Speaking of NASCAR. . .Talladega 2009

Speaking of wild finishes in a NASCAR race--check out the video link to the final lap of the Talladega Sprint Cup race below.

Brad Keselowski came out of the pack on the final lap to win the race. Thankfully, no injuries, just all-out excitement!

Race date: Sunday, April 26, 2009.

Climate impact on humans

The Global Humanitarian Forum's most recent report, "Climate Change responsible for 300,000 deaths a year," outlines the impact of climate change on human life.

The report is way beyond sobering. We have so many reasons to come together in community, both locally, nationally and around the world. Certainly, this report provides additional motivation of the most pressing sort.

Here are summary points to get your thoughts flowing:

--First ever report exclusively focused on the global human impact of climate change calculates more than 300 million people are seriously affected by climate change at a total economic cost of $125 billion per year

--Report projects that by 2030, worldwide deaths will reach almost 500,000 per year; people affected by climate change annually expected to rise to over 600 million and the total annual economic cost increase to around $300 billion

--To avert worst possible outcomes, climate change adaptation efforts need to be scaled up by a factor of 100 in developing countries, which account for 99% of casualties due to climate change

The full report goes on. . .

London 29 May – Kofi A. Annan, President of the Global Humanitarian Forum, today introduced a major new report into the human impact of climate change. The ‘Human Impact Report: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis’ is the first ever comprehensive report looking at the human impact of climate change.

The report was issued immediately prior to official preparatory talks in Bonn for a new UN international climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. These talks will culminate at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The report was reviewed by leading international experts, including Rajendra Pachauri of the IPCC, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, and Barbara Stocking of Oxfam.

The report estimates that climate change today accounts for over 300,000 deaths throughout the world each year, the equivalent of an Indian Ocean Tsunami every single year. By 2030, the annual death toll from climate change will reach half a million people a year.

To read the entire report click here.

At Central Dallas Ministries, we are working right now on developing a job training program to go along with a possible business venture to bring solar power to low-income communities here in Dallas at a price point that makes sense.

Reactions to the need?
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Stuff I read--Part 2

Another word or two about my reading habits.

While the journals/magazine referenced the last two days don't cover all that I regularly thumb through, they do represent a few favorites.

Here's what's left of that short, varied list.

I've been reading Sports Illustrated since I was a kid. Great photography and interesting analysis across the sporting world.

I remember reading stories about horse racing and fencing when I was in junior high.
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Log Home Living caught my attention a few years back. I call this my "fantasy time" reading each month when it hits my mailbox! I settle back into my easy chair and pretend I'm designing a new home on some Colorado or Vermont hillside. You know, a place to go to simply get away from everything, except the quiet, the beauty and the trout! The thought of living in a log house just seems right to me.
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A couple of inner-city teens came to our door about 6 months ago. They were selling magazines as part of a scholarship program. I never know if these things are legit, but I've never met a kid trying to sell something door-to-door that I had the heart to turn away without at least a little conversation. That is especially true in this neighborhood after dark.

Long story short: I ended up with a subscription to Baseball Digest, a compact little journal I'd seen but never read.

Pretty cool little resource that I pass along each month to my fellow baseball addict, Keith Ackerman! Every time it arrives I think of those kids at my door.
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As a Lifetime Member of Trout Unlimited, the mailing address on the monthly magazine reads "1/2050" as the year my subscription expires. I hope they are right about the date of my predicted passage!

This is a truly beautiful little journal. Great articles about water and fishing conservation, as well as trout fishing technique.

I don't let a single issue of Trout Unlimited to go unread.
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Of course, I read other publications--D Magazine, Texas Monthly and The Dallas Business Journal come to mind. But, what I've listed here are a few of my favotires.
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Stuff I read. . .Part 1

I've always made it a point to read weird, surprising, off-the-wall stuff of various sorts.

Possibly my way of thinking has been shaped by my "recreational reading."

When I served as a pastor, I subscribed to Rolling Stone (a few church leaders couldn't understand that one!). What follows are examples of some of the journals that I read on a regular basis.

I've always been interested, no, not strong enough; I've always been fascinated by custom cars, you know, "hot rods." So, I read about them every month. Rod & Custom and Hot Rod magazines provide the perfect outlet!


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My interest in mysticism and the history of Medieval Christianity, as well as social justice that has informed my faith, has drawn me to The Catholic Worker. Dorothy Day's involvement with the little monthly also draws me to the magazine. __________________________________________________

Over the past two decades my interest in business, sustainable models for community development and equity have led me to the world of business. Business leadership has been of particular interest to me. Years ago, when I first came to CDM, I began reading the Harvard Business Review. The monthly journal is well worth the price.


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Central Dallas Ministries' move into the world of affordable and permanent supportive housing brought me to Affordable Housing Finance magazine. The trade publication provides a quick overview of housing issues on the affordable end, with special attention given to developments employing low-income housing tax credits.

Great Depression?

My father was born in 1920. My mother in 1921. They were children during the Great Depression. As a result, I grew up hearing stories about their experiences in those very, very hard times. Unlike urban dwellers during this time, my folks lived on a farm which provided many advantages, especially when it came to food production and basic survival.

YouTube is replete with video posts about the period. After watching and listening to a number of these video history lessons, it occurs to me that the growth and maturation of any number of supportive national institutions since and because of that Great Depression provide us with protections and tools that my grandparents' generation did not enjoy. For this we should be grateful. I take so much, so many benefits for granted.

Watching and listening to events just 80 years ago causes me to respect my family and pause for a moment to be thankful even in this current challenging time.

a 90-feet-at-a-time game: baseball imitates life

Even with a home-run hitter like [Jose] Canseco in the middle of his order, [Oakland Athletics' manager Tony] La Russa says, "You've got your best chance to win when you've got good sharp line drives all over the park. Canseco stays in control, with discipline, trying to just hit the ball hard. He can hit .290, even in the .300s, he's got that good a stroke. And he's so strong that every once in a while, there goes one." Even in a year when there are 40 or more every-once-in-a-whiles from Canseco, he gets a lot more singles than home runs--more singles than extra-base hits. What is true of Canseco is true of baseball generally. In 1988 there were more than twice as many doubles (6,386) as home runs (3,180), but there were 25,838 singles. Baseball is still what it always has been and always will be, basically a 90-feet-at-a-time game.

George Will
Men at Work, page 40
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Get in on the Justice Revival--Dallas 2009

Could it be that "our times cry out for our conversion," as Jim Wallis of Sojourners puts it?
I think so.

Join the Justice Revival--Dallas 2009!

Mark your calendar: November 10-12, 2009 at Dallas Market Hall.

Join the leadership team for Justice Revival--Dallas 2009 on July 23 from 9:30--11:30 a.m. at St. Luke Community United Methodist Church (5710 East R. L. Thornton Freeway--I-30).

You'll be welcome!

Check it out!

Here's to your health, friend!

We've recognized for a long time now the power and the benefit of social networks, social capital, collective efficacy and strong community connections among people. Social bonding contributes to quality of life wherever it is found. Creating such bonds among low-income neighbors is a crucial part of what we attempt to do here at Central Dallas Ministries.

A recent report ("WELL; What Are Friends For? A Longer Life," April 21, 2009) by Tara Parker-Pope in The New York Times, provided more evidence of this powerful reality.

Here's what she says:

In the quest for better health, many people turn to doctors, self-help books or herbal supplements. But they overlook a powerful weapon that could help them fight illness and depression, speed recovery, slow aging and prolong life: their friends.

Researchers are only now starting to pay attention to the importance of friendship and social networks in overall health. A 10-year Australian study found that older people with a large circle of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study period than those with fewer friends. A large 2007 study showed an increase of nearly 60 percent in the risk for obesity among people whose friends gained weight. And last year, Harvard researchers reported that strong social ties could promote brain health as we age.

Read Parker-Pope's entire report here.

Any stories of the healing reality of friendship and community that you'd like to share?

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Children and poverty--Part 2

271,124.

That's the answer to yesterday's question: How many children who attend one of the 14 public schools districts in Dallas County qualify for free and reduced meals?

271,124.

Let that number settle in for a moment.

271,1124.

In the Dallas ISD, 133,010 qualify--that is right at 85% of the entire student body.

This may come as a surprise to those who know the area, the Richardson ISD serves these meals to right at 50% of their students (49.47% to be exact).

Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD has 54% of its student body participating.

DeSoto almost 53%.

Duncanville almost 64%.

Garland 45.5%.

Grand Prairie 64%.

Irving 72.65%.

Mesquite 49.47%.

Not surprisingly, the Highland Park ISD has no one enrolled in the program.

These numbers tell us several things.

We have lots of low-income families in Dallas.

Lots of students have exited the public schools.

Poverty is almost everywhere in the area.

Poverty and public education go hand-in-hand in Dallas.

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Children and poverty--Part 1

Lots of readers will be surprised by what follows here over today and tomorrow.

The Dallas area boasts a level of affluence that is, well, hard to describe.

The Dallas area is home to a level of poverty that is, well, hard to comprehend.

Sort of a tale of two cites.

One clear indicator of this duality can be discovered in the head count for free and reduced lunches in our public schools.

Take a guess: of the students attending the 14 Dallas County independent school districts, how many qualify for the free or reduced meal program? Take a moment and give us an answer.

Now play it honest. Make this your guess, don't go online and find the answer. Just give us your best estimate based on what you see and know.

The answer will be provided in the post tomorrow.

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Congo Street

The Congo Street Green Initiative is an amazing project.

Central Dallas Ministries has been fortunate to be involved by providing AmeriCorps members to support the effort. Brent Brown is a genius when it comes to architecture, education and community renewal. I'll let the story speak for itself!

Grandchildren and puppies

Not long ago, Uncle Bill and Aunt Judy and Uncle Kyle received 8 new Doberman Pinscher puppies into their world!

Sage, the mother, produced the amazing litter, with the help of old Bear, the father!

The video is simply a feel-good deal for me.

Our grandchildren love these pups!

Enjoy!

Happy Father's Day!

Bono and the Boss

Just because!

Charity is dead

Julia Moulden put up an interesting post on The Huffington Post a few weeks ago.

Moulden's new book, We Are The New Radicals: A Manifesto for Reinventing Yourself and Saving the World (McGraw-Hill, New York (2008)., keeps her busy on the speaker's circuit these days.

Here's a taste of her work:

The notion that "charity is dead" has been brewing for some time. On Earth Day (April 22), I remembered something an uber-green friend once said when we were talking about garbage, "There is no 'away'." That is, when we say of things we no longer want, "Oh, I'll just throw it away," we aren't really thinking about what happens to the stuff. It's now abundantly clear that that attitude created a huge problem - from overflowing landfills to the floating plastic island in the south Pacific.

Here's another piece of the puzzle that I'm struggling to put into place. In recent weeks, I've worked with and interviewed some remarkable people who have chosen careers in the non-profit sector. And from each of them I heard - perhaps for the first time, really heard - how they spend much of their time. Not, as we might imagine, helping people in need. Instead, they constantly do a desperate dance designed to attract the attention of people like you and me. So that they can raise awareness of their work. And the money they need to keep going.

Something is wrong with this picture.

Read the entire post here.

Reactions?

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Check this out. . .

Working in inner city communities among "the poor" makes one aware of the huge and widening gap that exists between people of privilege and people of disadvantage.

Clearly, we all love reading success stories of those relatively few individuals who make it across, who get out.

But success stories that are told because they are so exceptional, so unique, don't change the fundamentals of the reality. In fact, they prove it up by their very existence.

Check out what follows. One message here is certain: the challenges and the disparities will continue to grow worse.

Solutions?

Working people

E. P. Thompson published The Making of the English Working Class in 1963. I picked up my well-worn copy the other day for the first time in about thirty years. So, it's been a while since I worked my way through the story rise of labor in England. Once you get into Thompson's rhythm and style, the book flows. And that is good, the book is a tome--over 800 pages--not exactly a quick, weekend read, but well worth the effort.

The history of democracy and the growing insistence on democratic reform in England in the days just before, during and following the French and American revolutions makes for fascinating reading. The London and provincial corresponding societies provided regular meeting opportunities for revolutionary minded, anti-monarchical thinkers, most of whom were common, laboring people--artisans, tradesmen, dissenting clergy and the like. The interests of these groups--often persecuted, spied upon and, at times, suspected of plotting insurrection--remained largely unchanged across the reach of English labor history, at least in principle. Much of the conflict and debate stirred by these groups pitted a vision of traditional "moral economies" against emerging "free markets"--one product of modernity and a system served by expanding trade options.

The common consumers--those who worked to produce and to consume--suffered at the hands of those who controlled and manipulated prices in the marketplace. The local groups of correspondence allowed for debate, conversation, organizing and resistance in the face of what was perceived as clear injustice.

I can't resist posting a couple of excerpts from Thompson's brilliant work. What's said about history? Something like past being prologue, isn't it?

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Food riots were sometimes uproarious, like the "Great Cheese Riot: at Nottingham's Goose Fair in 1764, when whole cheeses were rolled down the streets; or the riot in the same city, in 1788, caused by the high price of meat, when the doors and shutters of the shambles were torn down and burned, together with the butcher's books, in the market-place. But even this violence shows a motive more complex than hunger: retailers were being punished, on account of their prices and the poor quality of the meat. More of the "mobs" showed self-discipline, within a customary pattern of behaviour. Perhaps the only occasion in his life when John Wesley commended a disorderly action was when he noted in his journal the actions of a mob in James' Town, Ireland; the mob--

"had been in motion all day; but their business was only with the forestallers of the market, who had bought up all the corn far and near, to starve the poor, and load a Dutch ship, which lay at the quay; but the mob brought it all out into the market, and sold it for the owners at the common price. And this they did with all calmness and composure imaginable, and without striking or hurting anyone" (64).

The Sheffield Society originated. . .from a gathering of "five or six mechanics. . .conversing about the enormous high price of provisions." It grew so rapidly that by January 1792, it comprised eight societies "which meet at their different houses, all on the same evening.". . .There were 1,400 subscribers for a pamphlet edition (at 6d.) of the First Part of Rights of Man, which was "read with avidity in many of the workshops of Sheffield. In March 1792, after four months in existence, the society claimed nearly 2,000 members (149).

[The purpose of the society was]: "To enlighten the people, to show the people the reason, the ground of their sufferings; when a man works hard for thirteen or fourteen hours of the day, the week through, and is not able to maintain his family; that is what I understood of it; to show the people the ground of this; why they were not able" (151).

"The usual mode of proceeding at these weekly meetings was this. The chairman (each man was chairman in rotation) read from some book . . . and the persons present were invited to make remarks thereon, as many as chose did so, but without rising. Then another portion was read and a second invitation given. Then the remainder was read and a third invitation was given when they who had not before spoken were expected to say something. Then there was a general discussion.

"The moral effects of the Society were very great indeed. It induced men to read books instead of spending their time at public houses. It taught them to think, to respect themselves, and to desire to educate their children. It elevated them in their own opinions" (154-155).

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Talk about community organizing! Fascinating read.
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We're not done with it. . .we're just not

I enjoyed an amazing experience attending Tulane University's graduate school back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was a great place to study, to think and to learn. I'll forever be grateful to the university for all that I received.

Several times a year I receive an issue of Tulanian, the alumni magazine. It is always worth reading.

The Winter 2009 issue arrived not long ago. It contained a story about Tim Wise (BA--Political Science 1990).

Wise has become an expert on "white privilege."

His bibliography is growing and he delivers scores of speeches every year on the subject of racism and the continuing reality of white advantage.

To learn more about Wise, visit his website.

To experience him, take the time to watch and listen. You'll be challenged, no matter what you think, I promise.

Doonesbury on the homeless and charity. . .

A friend sent me clipped copy of the June 7, 2009 Doonesbury comic strip.

Take a look at it here.

Let me know what the takeaways are in your opinion.

The wisdom of Gustavo Gutierrez

On February 3, 2003, Daniel Hartnett, SJ, interviewed Gustavo Gutierrez, the John Cardinal O’Hara chair in theology at the University of Notre Dame, for America, the National Catholic Weekly. The focus of the interview: poverty and faith. What follows is an excerpt, taken from one of Gutierrez's reflections.

I am firmly convinced that poverty—this sub-human condition in which the majority of humanity lives today—is more than a social issue. Poverty poses a major challenge to every Christian conscience and therefore to theology as well.

People today often talk about contextual theologies but, in point of fact, theology has always been contextual. Some theologies, it is true, may be more conscious of and explicit about their contextuality, but all theological investigation is necessarily carried out within a specific historical context. When Augustine wrote The City of God, he was reflecting on what it meant for him and for his contemporaries to live the Gospel within a specific context of serious historical transformations.

Our context today is characterized by a glaring disparity between the rich and the poor. No serious Christian can quietly ignore this situation. It is no longer possible for someone to say, “Well, I didn’t know” about the suffering of the poor. Poverty has a visibility today that it did not have in the past. The faces of the poor must now be confronted. And we also understand the causes of poverty and the conditions that perpetuate it. There was a time when poverty was considered to be an unavoidable fate, but such a view is no longer possible or responsible. Now we know that poverty is not simply a misfortune; it is an injustice.

Of course, there always remains the practical question: what must we do in order to abolish poverty? Theology does not pretend to have all the technical solutions to poverty, but it reminds us never to forget the poor and also that God is at stake in our response to poverty. An active concern for the poor is not only an obligation for those who feel a political vocation; all Christians must take the Gospel message of justice and equality seriously. Christians cannot forgo their responsibility to say a prophetic word about unjust economic conditions. Pope John Paul II’s approach to the phenomenon of globalization is a good example. He constantly asks: “How is this going to affect the poor? Does it promote justice?”

To read more from the interview look here.

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Wild ride. . .wilder finish. . .one of my vices!

Sorry, I've always loved car racing.

I can remember as a kid listening to the Indianapolis 500 on the radio back when it was always on Memorial Day, as in Mondays.

I still love Indy Racing League cars. Nothing like cars flying around a track at over 200 mph.

I even love NASCAR!

Take a look at the wild finish to the Coke Zero 400 race last year. Wild, wild finish.

I'll admit it. Racing is an escape for me. I'll leave it to you to do the psycho-analysis if you like.

But just be sure and watch the end of this race!

bell hooks. . .Class Matters

bell hooks writes powerful, challenging, disconcerting, revolutionary stuff.

"Class" issues occupy her thought and analysis. She makes it very, very clear that we are not comfortable talking about these "class matters" and that we are in deep denial about them.

What follows is a sample of her work from her book, Where We Stand: Class Matters (Routledge 2000).

Nowadays it is fashionable to talk race or gender; the uncool subject is class… In less than twenty years our nation has become a place where the rich truly rule… While greed has always been a part of American capitalism,it is only recently that it has set the standard for how we live and interact in everyday life. Our nation is becoming a class-segregated society where the plight of the poor is forgotten and the greed of the rich is morally tolerated and condoned. (p. vii)

Everywhere we turn in our daily lives in this nation we are confronted with the widening gap between rich and poor… Yet there is no organized class struggle, no daily in-your-face critique of capitalistic greed that stimulates thought and action – critique, reform, and revolution.

As a nation we have become passive, refusing to act responsibly toward the more than thirty-eight million citizens who live in poverty here and the working masses who labor long and hard but still have difficulty making ends meet. The rich are getting richer. And the poor are falling by the wayside. At times it seem no one cares. Citizens in the middle who live comfortable lives, luxurious lives in relation to the rest of the world, often fear that challenging classism will be their downfall, that simply by expressing concern for the poor they will end up like them, lacking the basic necessities of life. Defensively, they turn their backs on the poor and look to the rich for answers, convinced that the good life can exist only when there is material affluence. (pp. 1-2)

More and more, our nation is becoming class-segregated. The poor live with and among the poor – confined in gated communities without adequate shelter, food or health care – the victims of predatory greed. More and more poor communities all over the country look like war zones, with boarded-up bombed-out buildings, with either the evidence of gunfire everywhere of the vacant silence of unsatisfied hunger… No one safeguards the interests of citizens there; they are soon to be the victims of class genocide. This is the passive way our country confronts the poor and indigent, leaving them to die from street warfare, sugar, alcohol, and drug addiction, AIDS, and/or starvation. (p. 2)

We live in a society where the poor have no public voice. (p. 5)

Solidarity with the poor is the only path that can lead our nation back to a vision of community that can effectively challenge and eliminate violence and exploitation. It invites us to embrace an ethics of compassion and sharing that will renew a spirit of loving kindness and communion that can sustain and enable us to live in harmony with the whole world. (p. 49)

Wealth built and maintained by the exploitation and oppression of others undermines a democratic vision of prosperity. (p. 79)

…the widening gap between the rich and the poor causes pain far beyond economic suffering, it rends and breaks us psychologically, tearing us asunder, denying us the well-being that comes from recognizing our need for community and interdependency. (p. 158)

Banks paying back funds

Someone noted not long ago that banking is off track as soon as it becomes "interesting." The recent financial meltdown seems to validate that notion.

Now comes what seems to me to be good news: a number of the largest banks taking TARP funding are paying back $68 billion now!

Good news from the economy that is affecting so many of the folks we see every day.

87 % of Texas Communities Exceed U. S. Poverty Rate

John Hennenberger's (Texas Low Income Housing Information Service) research provides the hard data on poverty in Texas. What follows is worth a careful read. Poverty in a city like Dallas can be avoided by carefully chosen travel decisions. Even though we still encounter people who are surprised by Dallas' poverty, the preality remains and grows, both here and across the state. Here's John's report:

My New Year’s resolution is to put doing something about the high levels of Texas poverty on our state’s agenda for 2009. Here is an assessment of where Texas communities stand in terms of poverty based on the recently released American Communities Survey.

There are 61 Texas communities represented in the Census survey of more than 900 communities across the US.

Six Texas communities have poverty levels below the average US poverty level of 13.3 percent. However, three of the six are large metro areas (Austin-Round Rock, Dallas-Plano-Irving Metro Division and Fort Worth-Arlington Metro Division) that include affluent suburban communities that dilute much higher percentages of central city urban poverty. The “urbanized areas” of major Texas cities themselves have the following poverty rates: Austin - 14.1 percent; Dallas/Fort Worth - 14.1 percent and; San Antonio - 17.2 percent; and Houston - 16.1 percent. All are above the US community average.

Three smaller Texas communities have poverty rates below the US average: Dumas, Gainesville and Fredericksburg. Fredericksburg’s poverty rate is actually less than half of the US average.

Two Texas communities have poverty levels equal to the US average. A whopping forty-four Texas communities have poverty levels above the US average but less than twice the US level.

Nine Texas communities have poverty rates more than double that of the average US community. All of these communities, except College Station-Bryan, are along the Texas-Mexico border. Raymondville, Texas ranked as the community with the highest percent of persons in poverty of all US communities with an astonishing 50.1 percent of its residents below the poverty level. Rio Grande City-Roma ranked second in the US in poverty.

Eighty-seven percent of Texas communities in the American Communities survey have higher rates of persons in poverty than the US.

Read the entire report and review a most helpful data table here.

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