so very tired

Did Critical Mass tonight, we rode all over the city. Near the end of the ride some fuckhead truck driver decided he'd try and scare some bikers or something and swirved right into the middle of the ride almost running down a few of us before speeding off past us. Fucking people can be hella stupid sometimes.

I just finished about half the work of formatting the new issue of the Radical. This month since it's May this is the Haymarket issue, many good things in this one; also it's probably the most overtly Anarchist issue to date. The priests at my parish don't want me putting copies of the zine out on the info rack. Vancouver is generally a very conservative archdioces though so I try not to take it as more than it is.

In other news I have a new gameboy. I went out and got an SP so that I could have something to keep me occupied on the way down to LA next month. Also since my nes finally gave up the ghost I've been trying to find a new outlet for me video gaming. Sure there are emulators but it's just not the same, and since they have been releasing nes games for SP I figured this would be a good investment. On the other hand though I have become addicted to "Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap" a few days ago I spent most of the day playing and I didn't even notice until I looked up at the clock and found that four hours had passed. Needless to say I am trying to limit when and how often I play.

My body is completely spent from bicycling all day.

Another good thing that's happened: DJ, one of my best friends, doesn't have cancer!

If you live in Vancouver

Cindy Sheehan in Vancouver: Military Mom Speaks Out

As a mother looking for reasons for her son's death in Iraq,
Cindy has become a beacon for many in the struggle to end the illegal occupation of Iraq.

SATURDAY MAY 6, 7:30 PM
Shaughnessy Heights United Church
1550 West 33rd Ave, near Granville
$10 (More if you can, less if you have to)

Buy your tickets soon, to make sure you can get in!
Tickets available at http://ca.geocities.com/vanresisters
778-837-1475
People’s Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial
Duthie’s Books, 2239 W. 4th
Our Community Bikes, 3283 Main
Dadabase Boutique, 183 E. Broadway

Presented by the War Resisters Support Campaign and StopWar.ca
Cosponsors: the Council of Canadians, the Social Justice Committee
of the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, Shaughnessy United Church,
Vancouver Catholic Worker and the International Socialists

writing

book, articles, blog,

I started another attempt at writing a book last week, I'm on page 22 already and it is coming along well though I have no idea where I'm going to end the story.

The zine is also coming along well I guess though I worry about submissions, there aren't many and the ones which do come I have to squeze from people and I don't like having to be a mafioso about deadlines and other people's writing. Thankfully though I have been given permission to reprint articles by a number of writers and activists whom I grately respect, so I'm not at a total loss. My only real complaints are first that the reputations of some of these people might discourage new people from writing for me, I want The Christian Radical to be primarily a voice for folks who feel marginalised either by or because of their faith, I don't want to be the next Geez magazine or Adbusters or America, though they are all good periodicals with much to offer the public discourse.

I want to do something different, I want people to feel that they can send me things and that the merit of their writing will be judged not by who I can attract to read the thing but by the quality of their work and the clarity of their thought.

I could probably go out and put together a good zine with republished material from all kinds of sources if I wanted. If I wanted I could probably get lots of stuff by Daniel Berrigan and Ammon Hennacy and Dorothy Day and Christian Peacemaker Teams and other revolutionary Christians and activists but even though lots of people would read it and it might gain a larger audience or greater credibility in some circles it wouldn't be the paper I set out to make.

I won't turn down permission to reprint people who are respected and well thought of. On the contrary, I use their stuff gratefully and feel honoured for the permission, but I want to publish new voices.

In the early dais of Commonweal Magazine they published Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton before they were anyone of broad importance, they took chances printing people like that because they were new voices, and because they were saying things which were worthwhile and overlooked.

I would rather print unknown and unrecognised writers who have fresh views, which speak to the problems in today's world but first more of them have to send me their writing!

My other problem is that even though I have to squeeze writing for the zine, I have to scrape to get enough art. While I might get one or two new articles in a slow month, I have recieved maybe three submissions of pictures in the entire 7 months I've been printing this zine.

It has come to the point where unless I get more pictures I will have to either steal other artwork from the web or recycle all the pictures I've already used and neither of those possibillities excite me in any way.

I am thinking very seriously of making the coming issue with no pictures at all, just captions where the pictures would be that read "The Christian Radical has recieved no new artwork since late 2005 send original art to the.christian.radical at gmail dot com" and hope that I can guilt some people into sending things in.

I don't understand people sometimes. This zine has an audience, I sometimes think that I could print off 30 or more copies just for the two or three theological schools in this city alone and they would always be gone within the first two weeks. I have a subscription list and though it hasn't grown signifficantly it certainly hasn't shrunk at all, a couple of people in the US have even offered to do print runs in their own cities so there are people reading it, there is a demand. I just wish that more people would contribute, I say it all the time, without new material the zine will have to stop printing. It's not money that motivates this magazine, it's participation. I believe that if people become more involved then it will only grow, and that's a thought which always brings me great joy.

Christ is Risen!

It's Easter Sunday! My lent is over and so I went out and got pancakes and loafed about on the internet, I feel full and satisfied.

Last week my friend Barrett gave me a small book he'd bought at a library sale on the UBC campus, the book is called "The Radical Bible" and it's an anthology of quotes from the Old and New Testaments as well as related quotes from people, groups, and organizations who have concerned themselves with the religious aspects of peoples struggle and liberation theology. I'm really enjoying it and I find it to be a good introduction to Liberation Theology.

Yesterday I went to Easter Vigil with my friends from the Catholic Worker house, their parish is really nice, much friendlier and more inviting than mine. When the part when everyone greets everyone else with the sign of God's peace all of us actually got out of our pews and met in the isles and reached over pews to greet everyone else, it helps that the congregation was very small but it felt like there was something else going on than just that, people were friendly and at the end of mass I talked with one of the priests who officiated the mass and he was cracking jokes and smiling.

This is all so very different from my experience of going to the church in my own parish.

At my parish no one goes out of their way to greet oneanother and the priests, though dedicated and good people are also aloof towards me and hard to talk with. I find it difficult to engage with my parish comunity and though I've been attending weekly for over a year I still find that I don't know anyone there well enough to socialize with.

I'm really happy that I'll be going to LA in a month because it will give me some time out of this city to grow in a new environment and giving up my current apartement will help also because it will mean finding not only a new home but also a new home for my faith.

And on to the theology!

Reflections On the Crucifixion and the Lord’s Prayer
By Chris Rooney
All scripture references are from the Revised English Bible, copyright 1989 Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.

Every night before I go to bed I pray the rosary and every time lately, as I look at the crucifix and say the Lord’s Prayer, I have found myself reflecting on how very much the Our Father serves as a means of foreshadowing the cross and how the cross can be an exposition on the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer.

In this piece I am going to attempt to convey some of these insights by going through the prayer bit-by-bit and sharing my thoughts on each part.

Our Father who art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom Come,
Thy Will be done,
On Earth as it is in Heaven

Give us each day out daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us

And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil

For Thine is the Kingdom,
The Power
And The Glory

For ever and ever
Amen

Thy Kingdom Come:
The Kingdom has come in Christ and it will be realised and fulfilled in the lives and the actions of each one of us. This part of the prayer can be seen in many different lights, not simply the one I’ve written above. For instance, reflecting on the gruesome and sorrowful event of the Crucifixion, to pray “Thy Kingdom Come” could be a lament for the state of humanity that we would willingly and even at times enthusiastically crucify our Lord. We crucify Christ every time we deny him in the guise of our neighbours and yet despite this he is always with us and is helping all of us towards the realisation of the Kingdom.

Thy Will be done:
And this is His will being done. That Christ would live and die for us even though we nailed him up. That he would give his life willingly, in full knowledge of what would take place in order that his father could raise him up three days later and place Death under his feet, conquered forever.

This has been done On Earth as it is in Heaven:
Perhaps it might seem odd to quote an ancient Hermetic axiom here, but the phrase “As above, so below” is a very succinct way of rephrasing this truth about the functions of both the Cross and Resurrection. Mystically speaking actions on earth have their counterparts in heaven. This is illustrated throughout the Bible in the narratives and symbolism of both the Old and New Testaments. It is also how the Eucharistic rite functions, and it’s one reason why it is important that Christ says to Peter “I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; what you forbid on earth shall be forbidden in heaven, and what you allow on earth shall be allowed in heaven.” (Matt 16:19). It is this reason why when Christ died on the Cross, was buried and arose again after three days in the tomb, his actions conquered death and the powers of hell forever.

Give us this day our daily bread:
This line is not only a petition for the material substances of life, though physical sustenance is certainly an important thing to pray for. When I look at the Cross at this point in the prayer the only thing I can think of is the Sacramental life, the Eucharistic feast, where we all come together at the table of our Lord and share in his flesh and blood, which have become bread and wine for all people. The solidarity of the communion rite; which bind us all as Christians regardless of our denominations or the frequency of our participation in liturgy and sacrament. On another level I think that this request for Daily Bread could be taken as a petition for whatever it is in each of our lives, which is sustaining and edifying. Most people do not go to mass daily, but there are things in each of our lives that could be like bread for the soul. Like a sacrament of the present moment, it could be something relatively mundane, or it could be spontaneous. It might be something routine like one’s daily work, or prayer life. Whatever it is that makes you pause and wonder at creation, give thanks, or rejoice in even the smallest simplest way, that could be our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses:
As I wrote above, we crucify our Lord daily, this might seem to be a severe judgement but it’s not meant as one. I see it as an unpleasant fact of the human condition that every single one of us is prone to; I know I certainly am. Our trespasses take many forms; they are our weaknesses, our indiscretions, our human selfishness and fallibility. When we deny Christ in our neighbours, when we refuse to see the Lord’s face in the eyes of our enemies or in the faces of the poor, and the dispossessed, and the disabled, we are taking part in the crucifixion.

As we forgive those who trespass against us:
But there is always hope. Christ set us the ultimate example, the only example that could ever truly matter. He was lead to the hill and nailed to two big pieces of wood, bloody, exhausted both physically and emotionally, abused, betrayed, and humiliated but as he was raised up from the ground he prayed “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34) And though it says nothing of how Jesus bore the scourging, and beating, and the crown of thorns, I believe it is a safe bet that for every blow visited upon him he returned it, if only silently, with a petition to the Father for mercy and forgiveness for his abusers. And for me, knowing that Christ was able to forgive us with his dying words in agony, betrayal, and scorn. I know that I can do nothing less. And I know that the only way I can live my life is in imitation of Christ on the cross, I’m by no means very good at it, I always forget that my fellow human beings are Christ, and I have treated my brother and my family and even my friends in deplorable ways throughout my life; but knowing that I was forgiven before I even started to fuck up helps me to strive towards doing the same in my life and with those who have hurt me, and with those who for what ever reason and by whichever methods challenge me.

And lead us not into temptation:
Paul talks often about how we are saved by grace “Lest any man should boast”. I think that this might be part of this passage. It is easy to become wrapped up in our own assumed piety, we all know the right way of praying, of worshipping, of fasting. We always assume that our actions are benevolent and that we are being generous and it hurts and can sometimes be hard to accept if and when we are shown in some way to be less than our own self-image would dictate. We all have our moments of self-righteousness and it’s the most painful to encounter when this self-importance and false piety is displayed in a religious context. It is a temptation to assume that since we have been saved, or have been born again, or have never strayed, that this makes us something special, that this somehow gives us a sense of entitlement to something. Of course when I reflect on the Cross--and how that salvation was won--and when I think about how we all have a hand in it, there is nothing to be proud of. Since I started reflecting on this, and even more so since I started writing this article I can find nothing to boast about, because this salvation was won with the blood and broken body of God’s only begotten Son.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

But deliver us from evil:
Lord deliver us from the evil that we have and continue to carryout against you and against each other, lead us into the Kingdom in humility, in penance, in love and in longsuffering. Through Christ our Lord amen.
When Christ was on the Cross he was placed in between two criminals. One of these men started berating Jesus saying “’Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself, and us.’ But the other rebuked him saying ‘Have you no fear of God? You are under the same sentence as he is. In your case it is plain justice; we are paying the price for our misdeeds. But this man has done nothing wrong.’ And he said ‘Jesus, remember me when you come to your throne.’ Jesus answered, ‘Truly I tell you: today you will be with me in Paradise.’” (Luke 23:39-43)

For Thine is the Kingdom,
And the Power,
And the Glory,
For ever and ever
Amen. <

A little about me

I'm a writer, musician, activist and a member of the Catholic Worker movement. Politically I am an anarchist I don't like the term liberal because largely political and economic liberalism have been at the root of as much of the worlds problems as conservatism.

I see anarchism and pacifism as being natural extensions of my Christian faith. As a Christian I can not condone any act of violence wether it is the physical violence of war or the intelectual violence of racism, sexism, or the economic violence of poverty. I see the government largely as a tool used to enforce violence on individuals and groups who do not agree with the aims of the state. It has also been my observation that Christianity and politics by nature can not mix well. in the best of circumstances a Christian in politics will be forced to compromise her beliefs or morals or be forced to function inside of a system which does not share those same morals or ethics. At the worst the mixture of faith and politics will result in the eventual creation of a theocracy and the destruction of any last vestiges of civil society.

of course these beliefs set me at odds with a good many people both within my religion and within the activist comunities that I am a part of but that's ok, everyone's got their own bag, this is mine.

Some good books on Christianity and Anarchism:

"Anarchy and Christianity" by Jaques Ellul
"The Kingdom of God is Within You" by Lev Tolstoy
"Mutual Aid" by Peter Kropotkin
the writings of Dorothy Day


"Where are the heroes and the saints, who keep a clear vision of man's greatest gift, his freedom, to oppose not only the dictatorship of the proletariat, but also the dictatorship of the benevolent state, which takes possession of the family, and of the indigent, and claims our young for war?"

-Dorothy Day.

"Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man's business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked; Am I my brother's keeper? That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.

Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death?"

-Eugene V. Debs.

It is the start of Holy Week and this is my new blog.

I quit Livejournal and the Internettwo months ago in frustration with the kinds of vocal abuse and futillity of internet communities and the text based paradigm we are presently living in. I felt, and still do, that life is better lived that spent entirely in front of a screen, wether that screen is a computer or a TV itstill adds up to the same thing in the end, a serious and surreal type of addiction.

I spent all of lent trying to define my relationship to the web, and to figure out how much time I would spend on this computer. My conclusion, as near as I've come to one any way, is that I like blogging and that I would like to continue doing so, hence this journal. Also I need to use the internet for the work that I do editing a monthly Catholic Worker zine. But the things I need to watch are my news intake, my participation in online forums, and how much time I spend on MSN messenger. I have not set any new or hard, fast rules about this but I believe that in time that will get sorted out.