Lest Blood Be Shed

After seening the F9/11 movie by Micheal Moore, I started thinking hard about the systemic problem of the US governments role in oppressing the already poor and oppressed. The poor people of this country are dieing for us and they are being recruited in a very racist way by the US militrary. I wrote a paper about 2 years ago that delt with a similar issue. Environmental Racism. I wonder if anyone else sees this connection and if they do... do they care enough to change the systems that cause it. At the time I wrote this paper I claimed my place of residence in Griffith, IN.

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As I step out my door, I am greeted every morning by the dull hum of Interstate 80/94. Something inside me says I would miss the noise if the interstate were to "go away," but I, nor the thousands that surround the highway, would miss the tons of pounds of waste fumes that are spewed into the atmosphere each year. I'm sure that road has been one of the contributing factors in my asthma, for when I went to college in a rural community with no interstate highway near, my asthma went away. My personal dilemma only begins to scratch the surface of what the communities merely 3 miles north of Interstate 80/94 are struggling with to survive. If you were to travel north from my house, you would begin to notice a change in the landscape only two mile after you left the doorstep. The effect of pollution can plainly be seen in everything that is around you. The trees (if you can find any) begin to look tired and worn out. The buildings all have a yellowed look as if they were teeth stained by too much coffee or cigarette smoke. You can even just begin to see the smoke stacks from the steel mills even further north. As you continue to travel, there is something else that is changing that may not be as easily seen from a roadway, the color of the skin of the people living in the communities around you is beginning to get darker. As you enter the community directly connected to the steal mills and oil refineries which are causing the majority of pollution in the area, you would be hard pressed to find a single white person living there. Most of the people in this community realize they are sacrificing a healthy environment but they are sacrificing it for employment. The people that live in these communities are making lower to middle middle income but they are making it from the same companies that are killing them and their families with their waste. Why is it, though, this is not the case for white families as well? How is it I only see black and Latin families risking their lives in this toxic waste dump to make money for their families?

Fortunately, I am not the only one who sees this trend. The United Church of Christ in a landmark study Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States found that race was a major factor in the proximity of families to hazardous wastes.¹ They called this phenomenon "environmental racism"² To determine this, the study looked at every zip code in the United States and located the sites of toxic waste emission and/or dumping. The sites that were most densely populated by waste were also the sites that had a majority of minorities in the area. The study also took into account social class or income and determined that race was a bigger
factor than income.

This weekend was crazy! Let's start with Friday. I went to see the new F9/11 movie in Lafayette Indiana (I'm surprised they got a showing). I thought it was a very entertaining and well directed documentary. An emotional roller coster. Weeping (with real tears) one moment, laughing out loud the next, and anger the next, then laughing, etc. I would suggest everyone go and see it and join the social/economic process no matter what your view is about the authenticity of the facts in the movie. Be active and stay active! One drawback of the movie was I didn't get back home to Rensselaer until about 11:30pm. Now, that really wouldn't have been a problem if I didn't have to get up on Saturday @ 3:00 and drive Josh to the airport. He went to San Francisco on a student developers scholarship for the Mac Developers conference. So I go straight to bed and set the alarm to wake me up. I am to wake Josh up. I go to sleep. The next thing I know it's 5:30am! I have no clue what happened! I even went so far as to change the time of the alarm wake-up to one minute after 5:30 and it went off... The only thing I can imagine it could have been was I slept through the alarm. So I wake up Josh and we are running around a tizzy. Josh calls the airline (his flight leaves @ 6:48am and we are 1.5-2 hours away from the airport) they tell him he can go on stand-by for the next flight @ 8:50am). We leave for Midway airport and get their in 1 hour and 15 min. Josh checks in and makes the flight... BUT I have to leave before he boards the flight. I have to be back in Rensselaer for the Ordination of Jeffery Kirch. I leave Midway and head straight home. I get home, comb my hair, and leave for the Chapel. I think I'll blog on the Ordination process some other day... but this particular ordination (I've only seen this one so I don't want to judge them all) was very much a celebration of men and what old white men do and not a celebration of community and God's involvement in each and everyone one of our lives. Next on the plate was the Taste of Rensselaer but before that I went home with my Friend from College (Stephen) who was visiting and we sat down started talking and fell asleep in our chairs for like 3 hours. Maura, Stephen, and I went to the Taste of Rensselaer and had dinner and walked around a bit. It wasn't much to speak about. We went back to my house and make a fire and sat around and caught up with each other. The problem is... I had a sermon on Sunday... and I hadn't re-worked it yet. So I left them and started working on the Sermon. Sodom and Ga..What? God's vision of Hospitality. I finished about 12:00am and then was convinced to watch a movie with Maura and Stephen. Bless the Child... my God what a horrid movie. The acting was the worst. I get to bed around 2:00am and wake up at 6:15am (with the alarm). I have a strange feeling (Jesus?) my opening for the sermon is too inflamitory and so I re-write it and print out all 7 pages of it. I get to church give the sermon and only two people come up to me and say they loved it and the sermon was very much needed for the community. No one else talks to me . Hopefully they are contemplating the strong disconnect between offering hospitality to every person, every living creature in all of creation and for what western civilization stands (i.e. conquest, imperialism, distrust, fear, scarcity, etc.). Right from church I drive Stephen back to Indianapolis (2 hours each way). When I get home I plan on packing for the move and a whole bunch of other stuff I need to do but I fall asleep at about 1:30 and don't wake up until about 4:00pm. Maura came over while I was napping to do some laundry and when I woke up we ordered a pizza. Then I played some video games (Final Fantasy IX, I just beat VII, sorry phil VIII isn't that good).

Here it is Monday and I wonder why I am tired.

There are a lot of things going on this weekend... I'm going to see the new F9/11 movie, Driving Josh to the airport at 3:00am (he's going to he Apple Developers Conference on Scholarship) on Saturday, Attending the Ordination of one of my friends that same day, weeding the garden, giving a sermon on Sunday, and celebrating my mother's birthday that day too (Along with keeping my eyes open for a place to live). To help ease the weekend from unnecessary stress I had my sermon all ready for Sunday and would have just needed to "proclaim the good news." No such luck. I was going to preach about the eucharist and it's place in the modern church.

Scandal in the church! The Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) is a fairly progressive christian denomination (though it still needs some work... at least it is questioning itself and finding different answers). At any rate, a lesbian couple at the First Presbyterian Church of Rensselaer requested to use the church for a baby shower. They also requested to use the church newsletter to invite everyone to the shower. The session of the church (of which I am a voting member) approved the request without any real discussion but voted no to the use of the church newsletter as an announcement service. We would allow the couple to use the church bulliten board as a place for announcement and of course they can always announce the blessed event during the service on Sundays. No problem right? Wrong. The former pastor of church accused the session of being homophobic! We have since told her that the issue of homosexuallity didn't even cross our minds (at least not mine and hersay knowledge from others suggest so). People's feelings have been hurt in the church.

Because of this, I have decided to change to subject of my sermon to celebrating the eucharist to celebrating hospitality and using the story of Sodom to challange preconcieved notions of marginalizing homosexuals (or any other group that is being marginalized). But I didn't want to let my sermon on the eucharist go to waste. So, I include snipped sections of it here. ps I'm so going to find the limitation, the blog only allows 2713 characters Update... I fixed the bug and now it allows 2713 in the main body and 'unlimited' in the extended portion.

Eucharist: A Liberating Theology

The Eucharist is a meal of a people liberated....
But has often times been the shackles by which their hearts have been imprisoned.
For me, the roots of the Eucharist are in the liberation meal of the Passover. The first Passover was instituted by Moses (or God, depending with whom you speak) while the Hebrews were still in bondage. It was and is the meal of the last plague sent by God to free the Hebrews. A meal shared while the angel of death 'passed over' the houses of those who believed and acted on the words of God delivered by Moses.¹ The meal that was started in plague and bondage became a meal of liberation. This instituted the liberation story told of the people of Abraham and Sarah. It was told in the time of Jesus and continues on to this day. This meal of Passover was not only celebrated in the time of Jesus but also celebrated by Jesus.² Now, whether the Last Passover Supper celebrated by Jesus was the institution of the Eucharist meal or just the last Passover celebrated before the Passion of Christ matters very little. Jesus fulfilled the the law within the Passover meal by completing the liberation started by God so many years ago. The liberation of Jesus created a whole new community of people set free from a bondage of sinful societal norms and structures. I believe this new community reflecting on this liberation desired a way to celebrate there freedom and a meal shared in community was what this group saw as the perfect celebration.

Yesterday was wonderful... that is until I got home from play practice. While I'm driving up to the house I notice a truck in the driveway. It's a gutter cleaning service truck and the gentleman is out of his truck talking to my roomate. I stop the car and backup in the road to allow the guy to leave. I'm thinking he is trying to sell us gutter cleaning. I pull into the garage and get out of the car. I greet the gentleman and thing I'm going to have to tell him we don't want any. To my suprise that is not what we talked about at all.

The gentleman introduces himself... it's my landlords son.

Some background info: My landlord has recently been in the hospital with brain cancer. I learned of this when I went to visit at the beginning of June. My landlord's wife and I had a really long talk about Jerry (my landlord) and just things going on around town.

The son asks me if I know what has been going on with Jerry and I tell him I do and ask how he has been. Jerry is in a nursing home right now. The son wants to move him out of the nursing home, move his mom out of their house and put them in my house. My landlords wife is totally against it... and I'm not sure Jerry even knows his son is talking to me. But that is not something I need to be worring about. I have to move and I have to move within a month (the son wanted me to move out in like 2 weeks but I was like... listen... I'm going to need at least a month AND Jerry and I have a verbal contract that says he will give me 1 months notice before asked to leave the house... The son agreed).

I had a feeling this would happen. Even before I talked to Jerry's wife. I have been feeling held back by something or someone and I think (seriously) Jesus is giving me a swift kick in the ass to get me moving. My life's direction is not settling here in Rensselaer, IN.

I don't usually remember my dreams but when I do it's because they are crazy.

Evening at my house in Rensselaer, IN and I see all of these people walking past the side of my house. Many of them look fearful others full of sorrow. A few of them congregate around the house at which point I go outside and meet them. They don't say anything they merely walk into my house (with me following) and turn on the T.V.

On the screen there is a picture of a man being held up by six other men. There are two men of his head and sholders, one man for each hand, and one man for each leg. The men are holding him up as if they were a throne. These six men holding up the other man are dressed in black and red and they look exactly alike (face, hairstyle, everything). The man being held up is in white vestments and speaking to the TV cameras. He is telling us that the Pope has gone missing and he is the new replacement. While he is speaking the six men start speaking in tounges but they look like they are being torured while they are speaking.

I walk away from the T.V. The dream changes to some evening after the T.V. broadcast. My family is living with me now and we have started stocking up food in the shed in my back yard. We are not the only household that has done this. Many people around us have started storing up food. With good reason too. The means of food distribution have been halted. The government has fallen away. There are a lot of children running around the house trying to steal food from other people. At which point I start sharing the food our family has in the shed. Other family start to live with is and we start to share the food that we bring.

::In real life:: The cat meows to let me know she wants out for something. It's 5:55 am. I let her out of the room and go back to bed.

I've been meaning to start a blog now for quite some time. What better day than today to actually get off my ass and put something together. So, I downloaded this really cool blog software (serendipity) threw it on my webserver, connected it to my database server and presto a blog created by me.

Now let's just hope I use it and not be like every other blog on the internet that starts...well I haven't written in a long time so I... but we will see what will become of this site.

David DeLauro
Rensselaer, IN
I grew up in Griffith, Indiana, attending High School and moving on to be the first person to go to college in my family. I attended Saint Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree for Computer Science. I actually started working for Saint Joseph's College as the Network Computer Systems Analyst before I graduated in December of 2000 and have been working there ever since. Even in 2000 I felt a different calling for the direction my life was going and it was soon after my graduation that I applied for matriculation into McCormick Theological Seminary to earn my Masters of Divinity. I expect to graduate in 2005 but I have already started to put what I have learned to good use. I have begun preaching at the First Presbyterian Church of Rensselaer as well as scheduled to give lectures to the entire sophomore class at Saint Joseph's College for the Core III program, The roots of Western Civilization.

My email address is daved...at...saintjoe...dot...edu or my AIM screenname is daved314. Peace