Lest Blood Be Shed

I'm totally procrastinating, a. I need to get to Saint Joe and fix some things after our poweroutage on Wednesday, b. I need to clean the house, and 3. I need to write my papers! Instead of doing any of those I've decided to put up the Christmas Tree, Install a brand-new version of serendipity (my blogging software 0.7->0.8alpha3), and surf the Internet. While I was surfing I found this really cool site that tells one (based on public records from the 1920s) the population density of families with one's lastname in the various states.

When death occurs, the people should be informed as soon as possible, in order that they might provide appropriate consolation and support to the family and friends, and assist them in making arrangements for the funeral.

When the deceased has no connection with a church, then it is a appropriate to hold the service outside of a church and to omit or adapt portions of it as seems fitting. The ceremonies and rites of faternal, civic, or military organizations, if any, should occur at some other time and place.

All are invited to share in the service.

This will be my way of saying I'm sorry to those Iraqis who have died because of the US and who may never have a proper funeral either in their tradition or a foreign tradition marking the passage of the lives they have wonderfully lived. May God forgive us.

(the extended post contains the funeral service. You may pray along with the service and if you would like offer your condolences in the comments. If you would like to comment something other than support for the Iraqi dead, please post it on the November 9th post)

As the US has started a huge campaign in the city of Fallujah, I come to wonder how many civilians have died in the Iraq war thus far. One would think this would be a well published number seeing as the US is suppose to be a humanitarian country following all the "rules of war" et cetera but that is far from the case. The US government will not put out any numbers as to the number of Iraqi casualties. The government has stated that "[they] don't do body counts." Certainly they could make a conservative estimate. I suppose they figure that type of information is a downer for the American people so the government hides it to keep the people in the dark happy.

So, I took it upon myself to do some research and I found a few independent sources that do give numbers. The one that I find really non-political and gives a range of numbers based on good estimations for each altercation is http://iraqbodycount.net/

Currently they have a range of 14284-16419 civilians killed as of today. These are not insurgents or even Iraqi nationals fighting against the occupying force in their homeland. These are innocent people!

Think about how sad it was for the US to lose a mere 3000 civilians in the world trade center attacks. Think about how sad it would have been to have that happen in 5 different locations across the US. The depth of sadness we would have felt!!!!! That is what is happening to the Iraqi populous.

Even Augustine de Hippo in all of his double predestination splendor couldn't justify this war. (Augustine originated the doctrine of "predestination" and "just war" )

Why doesn't the US news and the US government give us this information?!

As part of the requirements for my History class up at McCormick, I needed to attend some sort of academic lecture and write a critical reflection on the event. Because I live so far away from Chicago I didn't want to make a special trip just to go listen to some lecture that I might not even like. Fortunately, Saint Joseph's College, the college where I work, has a theological lecture series in place. I decided to go to yesterday's lecture entitled: The 'Holy Island' or Modern Idol?: Papal Rome as Paradise Lost and Regained by Dr. Peter D'Agostino Assistant Professor of History from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Dr. D'Agostino talked about the time period from when the Pope lost his kingdom of the Papal States (1849) to the re-establishment of a physical kingdom (the Holy See: 1929) for the Pope to rule as a prince. Now, Dr. D'Agostino is a history professor and it showed in his lecture. This was definitely all about history with one theological question at the end left for the audience to discuss.

The short version:
Around the late 1840's in Italy there was great civil unrest. New movements in Italy were working to unify Italy under a single government. This movement resulted in the overthrowing of the kingdom of the papacy. The papacy did not accept this de-thronement and the current pope made himself a self-proclaimed prisoner within the Vatican after being forced out of the royal palace in Rome. From that point on the papacy did everything in its power to usurp the democratic system that was being established within Italy to regain control of the Papal States. Even threatening to excommunicate Catholics that participated in Italy's democratic system.

So I'm still procrastinating and someone sends me this link. I couldn't see the mist, can you?

http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eccaro/mist_or_ghost.html

I just saw a really good movie last night called Big Eden. I'm not much of a movie reviewer (click on the link and read the Amazon reviews if you want a real movie review) but to say it was filled with warm and loving Christian symbology is to not do it justice. This is what community should be: Meals shared, love over flowing and no community judgement type gossip. It was a really fun movie to watch.

I also noticed two articles over at Naked Church from today. One about the church and sexuality and the other about Bush vs Jesus. They are pretty good and I got a really good laugh from the Bush and Jesus article.

OK, back to procrastinating.

I think everyone should start off life poor without the hope of becoming rich. I really think all people should be on the same social and economic level but that would not be possible in our current fearful, hateful and oppressive social and governmental system. I've been poor for most of my life and now is no different. I barely have enough money to feed myself each month (I can manage maybe $75 per month for food and "extras" like toilet paper and soap). I really appreciate its benefits though. I'm not bogged down by the weight of worldly thought or concern. I'm more readily able to live a simple life ('tis a gift to be simple 'tis a gift to be free). Most importantly, I have a clearer view of how people are oppressed by the class system in America. I have sympathy for the pain of the impoverished and the marginalized. I feel I have a greater understanding of the importance of feeding the hungry, healing the sick, caring for the widow because I don't have to support in my mind the fiction of money. True community in any form is my economic base and I would have it no other way.

Everyone should experience the pain of economic injustice at least once in their life and for an extended period of years so that they may learn what it means to be the marginalized and maybe they wouldn't do the same to anyone else or at least they would be able to have empathy.

Down with the aristocrats and the corporations! Down with hierarchy and patriachy!