How wonderful to find such a picture with an Australian flavour.

See here.

I count the prophets of the eighth century as among my best mates. It is hard to choose between when it comes to favourites but, if I am forced, I will choose Amos, shepherd turned reluctant prophet. Christine Sine, that Aussie resident in the USA who comes home very often, has written a wonderful justice prayer over at Godspace which is partly based on Amos. The prayer has also been picked up at The Breadblog.

God let your justice and fairness flow like a river that never runs dry
Please help those of us who are rich to be honest and fair just like you, our God.
May we who have such abundance be honest and fair with all your people, especially the poor.
Let peace and justice rule every mountain and fairness flow as a river that never runs dry.

God let your justice and fairness flow like a river that never runs dry
May we your people defend the poor, rescue the homeless, and crush everyone who hurts them.
May we be as helpful as rain that refreshes the ground, to those who are treated unjustly.
Let the wholeness and fairness of your kingdom live forever like the sun and the moon.

God let your justice and fairness flow like a river that never runs dry
Because you our God rescue the homeless and have pity on those who hurt
May we who are rich stand up for the poor and let peace abound until the moon fades to nothing.
Let God’s kingdom of justice and fairness reach from sea to sea, across all the earth.
God let your justice and fairness flow like a river that never runs dry

~~~

When you can do nothing else: bear witness

Prophets of a future not our own....

Simon Barrow

Simon Barrow has to be one of the busiest - and most talented - people around. He is Co-Director of Ekklesia (who has long been linked from this blog). I am indebted to Simon and his blog, faithinsociety, for referring me to the wonderful thoughts of Oscar Romero expressed below. His thoughts seem so fitting for the sort of work this blog tries to do. The thoughts expressed here are frequently uncomfortable for mainstream people - including mainstream Christians. But seeking justice where there is none is never comfortable. Speaking out for the marginalised is never welcome when people are seeking only to make themselves and their own comfortable.

Long ago, a journalist named Finley Peter Dunne referred to comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Miss Eagle thinks that this is what Christians are - or should be - about. In fact, it should be what thinking people who care about humanity are about. This blog tries - but, as Romero points out, the job is never done. What is being built here is not the work of a master builder. Only the Master Builder can complete it.

Ab. Oscar Romeo, Martyr

A FUTURE NOT OUR OWN

A prayer/poem by Archbishop Oscar Romero(martyred, 14 March 1980)

It helps, now and then, to step back

and take the long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,

it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of

the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.

Nothing we do is complete,

which is another way of saying

that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church's mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:

We plant seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything

and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something,

and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,

an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,

but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders,

ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

The Prophetic Voice of Vinnie's

While I listened to the ABC's Religion Report on Wednesday 5 April, I thought I could hear Helen Coonan in the background marking down the ABC's Budget. Stephen Crittenden interviewed John Falzon, Operations Manager for one of Australia's biggest charities, the St Vincent de Paul Society. Falzon's interview was a tour de force and is worth listening to. For those of you who can't listen to it, or would like a permanent record, here it is. Fasten seat belts. Hold on to your seats.

The St Vincent de Paul Society says the Federal Government’s new breaching regime for people on welfare is immoral. Under the scheme, people who are breached but deemed to be extremely vulnerable, will be referred to the churches and charitable organisations to receive one-off payments of up to $650 to manage their cases.
Dr John Falzon is the National Operations Manager for the St Vincent de Paul Society.
John Falzon: Under the new Welfare to Work legislation, two major groups of people are going to be brought within the scope of the breaching regime. That’s people in receipt of parenting payments, especially single parents, but not exclusively, and also people with disabilities who are able to work more than 15 hours a week. Now when these people are breached, there are going to be some cases judged by Centrelink as being extremely vulnerable, and they are going to be referred to agencies that have taken up a contract to case manage the extremely vulnerable, and those agencies are going to give assistance in packages of up to $650 of government funds to the people who’ve been breached.What’s Vinnie’s position on this? Well, No.1 we consider the entire breaching regime to be unconscionable and immoral. It takes away dignity, it doesn’t offer hope, it doesn’t act as a mechanism for really enabling people to move from welfare to work. It punishes people who are already vulnerable, it deprives people of their human rights, of their dignity, of bread on the table for children in many cases.
Stephen Crittenden: And you’re not having any part of it.
John Falzon: Exactly. We’ve always held that position and as far as this idea of institutionalising charity and making people feel an even greater sense of humiliation in that even though the government is acknowledging that they’re going to be in a dangerous situation and is funding this period of crisis, it’s going to do so via a charity, to make people feel that the charity is being institutionalised and they’re being forced to go to a charity.
Stephen Crittenden: Yes, I don’t really understand what’s in it for the government. They aren’t really getting people off welfare, and even though the churches are looking after them, the government’s still going to be paying.
John Falzon: Yes, it’s more symbolic I think in this case. That’s what we really find unconscionable, that this is a return to some very old models of charity as being a means of really making people feel like they are to blame for their poverty. There’s a whole moral discourse involved here that we will have no part of. You know the wonderful educational theorist, Paulo Freire, and we really take his lead in Vinnie's, when he spoke very beautifully about needing to engage in a prophetic denunciation of the bad news, in order to engage in a prophetic annunciation of the good news. We denounce the breaching regime as bad news, there is no good news in any element of it. We do announce the good news that there is an alternative vision for Australia, and that’s one of our major concerns with this Welfare to Work legislation which some of our members refer to as Welfare to Work to Welfare - because in fact we don’t believe it’s going to have those sorts of positive outcomes that everyone would hope for. We believe that it lacks vision. Not only does it lack fairness but even from an economic rationalist point of view, it lacks strategic vision, and as the Book of Proverbs says, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish’. Well where is the vision in pushing people who are vulnerable into that low end of the labour market without any adequate opportunity for skilling, for education, at a time when most commentators will acknowledge we’re facing a skills crisis, at a time when Australia can in fact have a competitive edge, by investing in education skills and innovation.
Stephen Crittenden: Presumably some of these people are still going to be coming to you for help, whether the government’s reimbursing you or not?
John Falzon: That’s true, absolutely, and Vinnie’s will never cease giving assistance to people who have been breached, and they will continue to come to us. We won’t be accepting government money to do that, we won’t be entering into a contract, but what we’ve always maintained is yes we will give the charitable assistance, we will be there as a charity because we consist of so many wonderful people who are giving up their time to do that, and because they believe in a fair go.
Stephen Crittenden: Doesn’t that let the government off the hook?
John Falzon: Well there’s the second part of the equation. We’ll give the charity to people but what we have always maintained is charity is fine, but what these people deserve is justice, and we’ll keep clamouring for that justice.
Stephen Crittenden: The Salvation Army says it will probably take up this proposal. The St Vincent de Paul Society says the breaching regime is immoral and you won’t have any part of it. Shouldn’t the churches be at one on this issue?
John Falzon: Well our position as far as – I’m not commenting on churches, but I will comment on agencies – we have taken the position quite rightly in my opinion, that we in no way wish to give any direction or call to other agencies as to how to conduct themselves. They must follow their own charters, their own rules, their own rationales for how to engage in this quite vexed social policy area.
Stephen Crittenden: But if you’re calling the government immoral, surely the implication is another church welfare agency who takes part in this immoral regime is participating in immorality if you like.
John Falzon: Well, as I said, we’re not commenting on the decisions of other agencies as to how they engage in this entire process, but for Vinnie’s our message is clear: in our rule as a matter of fact, it says where injustice, inequality, poverty, or exclusion are due to unjust economic, political or social structures, or to inadequate or unjust legislation, the society should speak out clearly against the situation, always with charity with the aim of contributing to and demanding improvements. For those people who might think that’s quite strongly worded, it’s not nearly as strongly worded as those words from the Prophet Isaiah, ‘Woe betide those who enact unjust laws and draft oppressive legislation depriving the poor of justice, robbing the weakest of my people of their rights, plundering the widow and despoiling the fatherless.’ That’s where we take our lead from, Stephen, we’re placed in a position by our members because of what they see every day in giving assistance to the people who come to us.
Stephen Crittenden: Let’s turn to a couple of other related welfare issues. Vinnie’s is also particularly concerned about what you’re describing as the nexus between the government’s Welfare to Work legislation and the new IR legislation.
John Falzon: Yes. Look, what we see is that the people who are going to be pushed by the Welfare to Work legislation into that low end of the labour market, are also the people conceivably, who will be subjected to compliance with Australian workplace agreements that potentially will not be family friendly, that will be deleterious to family life. We’ve actually received some legal advice to suggest that there may be a case whereby the provisions in the Welfare to Work legislation can contribute to coercion of sole parents to breach their duty of care to their children which is potentially a criminal offence.
Stephen Crittenden: But you’re also suggesting that the Welfare to Work legislation won’t just have the effect of pushing single mothers say back into the lower end of the workforce, it will also have the effect of pushing them on to individual contracts, which may be deleterious to them.
John Falzon: Conceivably, yes. We’re not in any way saying that that is necessarily going to be the case, but it is certainly on the cards as far as we can see, that that’s precisely where Australian Workplace agreements will be put in place, and who knows what kind of conditions will be removed from those working arrangements, particularly where children are involved.
Stephen Crittenden: OK, just finally, Dick Warburton and Peter Hendy, two Australian businessmen, have this week presented the Federal government with their review of Australia’s tax rates. And the Prime Minister has said that his first priority in this year’s budget is support for lower middle-income families. What is St Vincent de Paul Society saying about tax reform?
John Falzon: What we’re saying No.l is that the Treasurer is quite correct in citing the OECD figures that we’ve got the eighth lowest tax to GDP ratio, and that we’re the second-lowest spending amongst the OECD countries. We have always considered two major points as far as the debate on tax reform. 1. is that the effective marginal tax rates that affect precisely the people moving from Welfare to Work are incredibly high, up to the 70% mark and this acts as a major disincentive for people moving from Welfare to Work.
Stephen Crittenden: Labor’s Wayne Swan is saying this, too, this week.
John Falzon: Yes, quite right. Secondly though, we have always maintained that the far greater deficit in Australian society is not so much in terms of the need for tax cuts, it’s in terms of our under-investment particularly in social infrastructure, particularly in the costs that hit low income households, and middle income households in areas of education, health, transport, housing, child care, these are the sorts of costs that impact heavily because it’s a matter of shifting from the public purse to the private pocket. We would dearly love to see an intelligent and strategic investment in these areas of Australian society rather than putting a few dollars into people’s pockets, because this would have not only a great effect on those individual households, but as a whole, collectively as a nation, it would enable us to go forward and would stand in opposition to the narrow-minded punitive welfare reforms and IR reforms that we’ve seen.
Stephen Crittenden: John, thanks very much for being on the program.
John Falzon: Pleasure, Stephen.
Stephen Crittenden: You don’t often hear a Catholic who can quote the Bible. Dr John Falzon, the National Operations Manager for the St Vincent de Paul Society.

Prophetic Witness for Peace

Readers of this blog will know that Miss Ealge has blogged in support of the Christian Peacemakers Team held captive in Iraq. One was found dead a fortnight ago. Yesterday the remaining three were released. Miss Eagle does not want to say too much but would refer you to the Free the Captives site and below is the official statement from Christian Peacemakers Teams which says it all:

Our hearts are filled with joy today as we heard that Harmeet Singh Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember have been safely released in Baghdad. Christian Peacemaker Teams rejoices with their families and friends at the expectation of their return to their loved ones and community. Together we have endured uncertainty, hope, fear, grief and now joy during the four months since they were abducted in Baghdad.

We rejoice in the return of Harmeet Sooden. He has been willing to put his life on the line to promote justice in Iraq and Palestine as a young man newly committed to active peacemaking.

We rejoice in the return of Jim Loney. He has cared for the marginalized and oppressed since childhood, and his gentle, passionate spirit has been an inspiration to people near and far.

We rejoice in the return of Norman Kember. He is a faithful man, an elder and mentor to many in his 50 years of peacemaking, a man prepared to pay the cost.

We remember with tears Tom Fox, whose body was found in Baghdad on March 9, 2006, after three months of captivity with his fellow peacemakers. We had longed for the day when all four men would be released together. Our gladness today is made bittersweet by the fact that Tom is not alive to join in the celebration. However, we are confident that his spirit is very much present in each reunion.

Harmeet, Jim and Norman and Tom were in Iraq to learn of the struggles facing the people in that country. They went, motivated by a passion for justice and peace to live out a nonviolent alternative in a nation wracked by armed conflict. They knew that their only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their Iraqi and international co-workers. We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must end.

Today, in the face of this joyful news, our faith compels us to love our enemies even when they have committed acts which caused great hardship to our friends and sorrow to their families. In the spirit of the prophetic nonviolence that motivated Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom to go to Iraq, we refuse to yield to a spirit of vengeance. We give thanks for the compassionate God who granted our friends courage and who sustained theirspirits over the past months. We pray for strength and courage for ourselves so that, together, we can continue the nonviolent struggle for justice and peace.

Throughout these difficult months, we have been heartened by messages of concern for our four colleagues from all over the world. We have been especially moved by the gracious outpouring of support from Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. That support continues to come to us day after day. We pray that Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq.

During these past months, we have tasted of the pain that has been the daily bread of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Why have our loved ones been taken? Where are they being held? Under what conditions? How are they? Will they be released? When?

With Tom’s death, we felt the grief of losing a beloved friend. Today, we rejoice in the release of our friends Harmeet, Jim and Norman. We continue to pray for a swift and joyful homecoming for the many Iraqis and internationals who long to be reunited with their families. We renew our commitment to work for an end to the war and the occupation of Iraq as a way to continue the witness of Tom Fox. We trust in God’s compassionate love to show us the way.

Living through the many emotions of this day, we remain committed to the words of Jim Loney, who wrote:

"With God’s abiding kindness,
we will love even our enemies.
With the love of Christ,
we will resist all evil.
With God’s unending faithfulness,
we will work to build the beloved
community."