love the poor

Love the poor and love poverty, for it is by such love that we become truly poor. As the Scripture says, we become like the things we love. If you love the poor you will share their poverty and be poor like them. If you love the poor be often with them. Be glad to see them in your own home and to visit with them in theirs. Be glad to talk to them and be pleased to have them near you in church, on the street, and elsewhere. Be poor in conversing with them and speak to them as their companions do, but be rich in assisting them by sharing some of your more abundant goods with them.

-Francis de Sales

Trilby and the Roaring Rumbling Runaway River

He knew Spring was on the way, the ice was melting and the water began to move around him. He stretched his topmost fin and tested his swimming power. All systems in working order but now he had to eat. Too early for fishermen and their live bait and it was too early for the men from the fish hatchery. Trilby was always happy to see his new cousins pile out of that big noisy truck from the hatchery. Then the spring rains began and he had to swim for his life, the water was coming faster than he could swim so he relaxed under the hidden shelf of the riverbank and let it flow by him. The mother deer that lived in the neighboring woods came by with her fawn to have a drink; she spotted Trilby and winked at him. He did not want to leave his comfy hiding place, he knew if he ventured into the rushing water he would be pushed along so swiftly he might lose control and decided to try and for almost a day he let the water take him and the wooly bear that landed on his back onward. The caterpillar had wisely jumped to a leaf to keep her feet and fur dry and before they knew it, they were in the reservoir at West Boylston. Trilby looked around and saw some of his missing cousins who left home in Quinapoxet just before the freeze. They were glad to see him and took him to their favorite shelter under the shore away from people. Fishing was actually restricted at water supply lakes making this lake almost without fishermen and Trilby was very hungry. So his cousins took him to their secret eating-place. There were all kinds of mayfly nymphs waiting to hatch and be caught. It wouldn’t be long before the air would be alive with mayflies skimming over the water. Trilby’s friend Bill a favorite angler would soon be arriving with his boots and poles and fishing lures. He liked this man because he did not fish to feed himself but for the sport of catching a fish and each time Trilby was hooked on his lure, Bill reached down and carefully unhooked him setting him free. Part of the fun of being caught was to see the colorful flies that Bill made.

The brown trout cousins did not appreciate Trilby’s liking for this fisherman and decided to play a trick on both the man and the fish. A special place down by the pumping station had some big brown sticks that looked like fish so they pushed and shoved with all fins working until finally the sticks were arranged so that even Trilby thought they were ugly brown trout. He, of course was a Rainbow and proud of it.

A car stopped on the road above the reservoir and sure enough a fisherman came down the path whistling. Most fishermen whistle, there is something about fishing that makes men and boys happy, Trilby thought maybe that was one reason he did not mind being caught.

The fisherman, this time another Bill, got all his gear ready, waded into the water not too far from the fish-like branches that were so carefully positioned. He had a gleam in his eye, could not wait to get his lure into the water and catch one of those brown (branch) trout. The trick meant for Trilby was about to backfire. Bill’s boot hit one of the branches and when it did not swim away he realized he was being tricked. Then Trilby did one of his famous leaps out of the water just like Winslow Homer’s painting, diverting Bill’s attention; the day was saved! Trilby found more mayfly nymphs attached to the fake fish branches. The disgusted fisherman walked out of the water and made his way up the path, angry that he had been tricked. He drove away toward the river and left all those fish behind. He knew a better place to fish upstream of the reservoir. Where do you think that was? You are right! up the Quinnie River. Soon he was happy to see mother frog leading her tadpoles to their new home upriver. As they swam along people appeared at the entrance to the town well property. There was an opening in the bushes where they liked to come in the early winter for black alder berries and in summer to see the bottle gentian, a rare treat.And Trilby swam back up the stream to his hiding place under the shelf and continued to watch the world swim by.


J.P. NEALE

THINK ABOUT IT

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty. Mother Teresa

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty. Mother Teresa

why i'm agnostic

Since 1994, David Bazan has put sharp questions about faith, justice, and his Pentecostal-evangelical upbringing front and center in his songs. Like many doubters who came before, from Augustine to Mother Teresa, he wrestled with God while still counting himself as a believer. However, on his most recent solo album, Curse Your Branches, released last September, Bazan’s forceful, prodding lyrics find him still grappling with the big questions, but no longer counting himself as a Christian. With his trademark candor and thoughtfulness, Bazan, former front man of Pedro the Lion and Headphones, spoke with Sojourners assistant editor Jeannie Choi in the musty green room of The Black Cat, a music venue in Washington, D.C.




Jeannie Choi: How did your faith journey move from a place of belief to disbelief?

When I was in eighth grade, my mom got this book called The Light and the Glory; it was one of the first in the wave of Christian revisionist histories of the United States. It claimed things like the founders were born-again Christians just like we are. It just dawned on me—I couldn’t really trust the leaders of this movement to be intellectually honest. They were just trying to stack the deck so that they could get a leg up in the cultural battle.

For the longest time, I was concerned with reform more than anything, because I felt like the ship of the church was way off course. The church’s desire for political power and its relationship with wealth and the wealthy seemed to me to be unbiblical. But when I really started looking at the foundations to try to get those things right, I realized there were all of these fundamental assumptions that I’d made—from the inerrancy and authority and inspiration of scripture, to just the mere existence of God—and I started to think, “Well, if you’re really going to make this your own, then you can’t begin with these assumptions. You have to go below them.” And I just don’t really see a lot down there.

How much of your agnosticism is a result of your disdain for the evangelical subculture rather than the tenets of Christianity?

There isn’t, at this point, anything I find unique to Christianity that isn’t a first principle or a core idea. I really think that within natural revelation—which is, of course, a Christian way of putting it—there is enough to know how to live in harmony with the people around you and with the land and our environment. For me, that’s just enough.

When I think about the tyranny of the afterlife, and how people live in such a way because the possibility of the afterlife distracts them from doing good to others and living at peace with one another, the less it’s even plausible to me that a being who created the genome or DNA or our bodies or the ecosystem—things so elegant and finely tuned—would use the blunt instrument of physical violence as a way of getting people to stay true to the system. It just doesn’t seem compatible to me. I think that living for the here and now, fully committed to one another with no “escape hatch” of Jesus coming back anytime soon, is more compelling to me.

Is there anything still attractive to you about Christianity?

On a song on the new record I talk about these “beautiful truths”—justice and honesty and the belief that who you are when you’re alone is who you truly are. These basic principles of fairness I feel I understood thorough my Christian upbringing. So one of the themes I still feel like I have in common with Christians is when Jesus is asked to sum up the law, and he says, “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Now, ironically, these same principles have pulled me out of Christianity and caused me to reject it. Believing the right things and not doing any of the right things is the norm in evangelical Christianity, and it’s really perplexing. I’m flabbergasted every time I run into this, because basically there’s this whole movement of people who ostensibly believe the right thing, but are the pawns of the military-industrial complex, and that’s just too bad. It seems like high comedy, like a very twisted joke.

In a song on your new record, you wonder how your mom is going to react to your rejection of Christianity. What was her response?

She really liked the record, but it’s hard for her and my dad. I sent them that song—“When We Fell”—as soon as I wrote it and said, “I’m not necessarily asking for permission, but I just wanted you to hear this, and if it’s just not going to work for me to sing this tune, then I want to know.” They wrote back and said, “This is perplexing, of course, but this is your tune.”

My mom said something really sweet not too long ago. She said, “I just want to clarify that the only reason I taught you to follow your heart was because I thought Jesus was in your heart.” And, well, I thought that too. And I told her that I learned to follow my heart just from watching her. She’s where I learned compassion for the underdog, and my sense of justice comes from my mom and her impulse to lift every voice. So, I worry about my parents, and it makes me feel a little bit of sadness, but at the same time I hope that they can see that all of this is honest, not just messing around.

Many of your songs are declarations about what you see as wrong with this world. Are you writing those for yourself or do you hope they’ll cause your listeners to also question?

I always think of it like I’m back in school and in class. If the extrovert raises their hand and asks the question, the five or six introverts think, “I’m really glad that person asked that question because I really wanted to know that too.” For me, so many times a way of thinking is opened up just because somebody spoke truthfully about something.

You’ve described “introvert” Christians as unable to ask questions about faith. Why do you think that is?

Well, I can understand the impulse to have a cultural identity that is defined and that you can broadcast easily. I empathize with that impulse, but it strikes me as fundamentally misguided.

I have to go with my gut about these things and try to figure out what I think is right and true, and I’m really encouraged when I see other people doing that, even if we come to different conclusions.

Return to roots

especially Christians who have turned their backs on Jesus’ teachings about peace, justice, and the poor. Bazan nailed it when he said: “Believing the right things and not doing any of the right things is the norm in evangelical Christianity.” Fortunately, there is a movement away from the Christianity that aligns itself with wealth and political power and toward a Christianity that aligns itself with the heart of the Person the faith is named after.

David Bazan

GANDHI

GREATNESS

During the reading of Susan Cheevers' American Bloomsbury, one phrase stayed with me. In the presence of greatness. And so, the obvious comes to mind. Greatness in my mind is first manifested in GOD but it also recently came to my attention when, as we drove into the yard today, we discovered a ‘new’ bird eating the Flowering Crabtree’s apples. Helen said she thought it was a Cedar Waxwing. What a thrill! we had not seen one for years and to think he was eating his lunch at our old tree. Speaking of being in the presence of greatness, Yes to see a simple bird in a tree makes one realize that at that moment greatness is with us. Just as the red berries on the Barberry Bush are there to cheer us each time we step out the front door; I am in awe each time I see the Great Blue Heron ease himself up from the little pond below the barn. I could think of lots more but you probably get the idea. When one is in the unencumbered position of concentrating on one great thing it pushes all the unimportant frivolities to one side. Awe is a good word to describe these feelings of another presence. I think we all have at one time had an awestruck happening in our lives. And, if we think about it we might be able to reach into a corner of memories and find one or two.




So greatness instills in us a feeling of awe and wonder. In trying to find other examples, I came upon the mountains, and glaciers of Switzerland and our own Alaska. I might even include man-made wonders the designers of which must have felt they were in the presence of greatness when the designs were developing. And too, our great authors, especially those who established a writing tradition in our country. They also believed they were in the presence of greatness. Ralph W. Emerson, his friends Thoreau, Hawthorne, Bronson Alcott, and Louisa. And so we arrive at that place in our personal world for isn’t it that greatness that guides our thinking and writing and communication with one another? Thanks be to GREATNESS.


JANE NEALE

Music and its charms

What better beginning for a short essay on music? Coined by William Congreve, in the Mourning Bride, 1697:

“Musick has charms to sooth a savage breast,
to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak?”



Do we realize all the things about music that we love? Maybe, but I was thinking about it yesterday and wondered if any of us realize the thoughts and talents that are necessary to compose or conduct a symphony or a concerto or even an oratorio. The words of direction that give music its personhood are also a large part of our enjoyment, Piano, pianissimo, andante, largo forte all Italian words that make our music what it is. I discovered this year why an early piano was called a pianoforte. It is because it was capable of playing piano and forte soft and loud.

How in the world did Beethoven know what he was creating? He had lost his hearing; did he know the notes so well that he heard them in his head? The Moonlight Sonata, in his head, what a blessing and even his Ninth Symphony that we sing in church as Joyful Joyful, we adore thee. And little old Mozart the genius at such an early time in his life. He remains a favorite to this day. It would be difficult to mention his name and not have it recognized. And the film Amadeus brought even more interest to the general public. And many other stories surround the lives of the composers. F or instance I did not know that Robert Schuman died in a mental hospital. He had tried from an early age to commit suicide so requested to be hospitalized. And Franz Joseph Haydn’s head was stolen after he died Chopin died of pulmonary turberculosis.



Do you leave classical music playing all night? It is a good way to unclutter a brain; making room for ideas that have lain dormant for too long. ..The saying, “music hath charms” was coined by William Congreve, in theMmourningBride, 1697:



What better beginning for an essay on music?

classical music as we know it has been invaded by some real genius. Stravinsky, Copeland* and some of the raucous modern stuff that we have had to learn to accept. The Beatles did make compositions that were more musical than noisy definitely contrasting with what I call noise of the present day. Speaking of Copeland, his Fanfare for the Common Man comes to mind with its trumpets so pure. What is your favorite instrument? I think woodwinds are purer as are the trumpets. Must admit to influence of wynton and Ellis Marsalis and their brasses who have almost brought American Jazz into the classical sphere.

Copeland’s *Ballet Rodeo. And Appalachian Spring too have almost made it. We also know that the film industry borrows regularly from the old composers for its background music in many films.

Speaking of jazz, it is a little tough to take unless you can hear the engineering it takes to play the instruments. There are many devotees of this branch of music and perhaps it is well-earned. Having roots in our country in the New Orleans tradition many of us have learned to appreciate it to a great degree particularly for the talents it exhibits.

ON WORKS

Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905- 1987)



Faith is a movement of the entire person away from himself,

through the gift of grace; thereby he lays hold of the mercy of

God given to him in Christ-in the form of the forgiveness of

sins, justification and sanctification. In this movement away

from himself man has done all that he, through grace, can do; he

has done all that God requires of him. Since his intention is to

leave himself, without reservation, and hand himself over entirely,

this movement implicitly' contains all the "works" he will

eventually do. They are not some second entity beside faith; if

they are performed in a Christian spirit, they are only forms in

which faith expresses itself. .

As an •act 'of the whole person, faith travels in a direction away

from itself and toward God. That is why reflection on itself and

any attempt to make itself secure are foreign to it. The gospel

may promise a "reward in Heaven" to a faith that is rightly lived

out, but faith itself is very far from calculating any "merit" that

may bring about such a reward. "

The word "merit" insofar as it concerns some value conferring

a right to something, is theologically an unhappy term that would

be better dropped. (In tradition it very often has a quite different

sense, namely, "being found worthy" by God: tu quae meruisti

portare ... >.We need have no qualms about dropping the word,

for there is a biblical word ready to replace it: fruitfulness. God

responds. to Abraham's faith in this way: "I will make. you

exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you" (Gen 17:6).

The Lord is always using the word in his parables. In John it is

the grain of wheat, which dies in the earth, that brings forth much

fruit. The metaphor of the vine is even clearer. Apart from Jesus

a man can do "nothing", but if he abides in-him he brings forth

"much" fruit. If he fails to do this, he is removed; if he succeeds,

he is "cleansed", cut back in order to produce even more fruit.

Clearly, this does not mean externally quantifiable results. As far

as the Kingdom of God is concerned, Mary, sitting at the feet of

Jesus, is more fruitful than the busy Martha. When Mary anoints

the Lord's feet at the meal in Bethany and Judas protests at this

"waste" and thinks how much money the ointment would have

yielded, he is rebuked: the fruitfulness of this prodigal gesture

that takes no account of "merit" is far more important to Jesus

than some work of charity. .

In the Fullness of Faith

OSCAR ROMERO

Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down.




- Archbishop Oscar Romero, an advocate for the poor and marginalized, was assassinated thirty years ago today while giving Mass in El Salvador.

We Shall Overcome

People cannot contribute to the nation if they are never taught to read or write, if their bodies are stunted from hunger, if their sickness goes untended, if their life is spent in hopeless poverty just drawing a welfare check. So we want to open the gates to opportunity. But we're also going to give all our people, black and white, the help that they need to walk through those gates.




- Lyndon B. Johnson, from his speech, "We Shall Overcome," given to Congress on March 15, 1965, after racial violence broke out in Selma, Alabama

MEANING WHAT YOU SING

Caesarius of ArIes (470 - 542)


Above all, strive by holy thoughts, as well as by prayers, to fulfill

in daily life what you profess orally; and may the Holy Spirit

who speaks to you upon your lips also deign to dwell in your

hearts. It is truly good and pleasing enough to God when the

tongue devoutly chants the Psalms, but it will be better still if

your life is in harmony with the words on your tongue. Our words

and our lives should be in agreement. Let not our words bear

testimony against our evil habits, and let not our tongue refute

our lives. If one thing is uttered with our mouth, and something

else appears in our actions, what the tongue seems to build up

our evil life immediately destroys. For your part, dear Christians,

may the sense of a Scripture passage hold your attention as well

as the pleasantness of the sound. If, when a person chants the

Psalms, he only pays attention to the sweetness of the sounds and

the arrangement of the words, but does not heed what should be

understood in them, his ears receive passing nourishment, but

the Word of God does not reach his heart. In a certain sense, such

a one chews on pure wax, but does not taste the sweetness of the

honey at all.

Sermon 75

Your Law, 0 Lord,

Your Law, 0 Lord,


written on men's hearts,

inscribed and learned

by multitudes of men,

seeping through a thousand crevices

into the remote corners

of our world___

Your Law has reared

not only the huge symmetries of justice,

those marred majesties,

but even these little

complexities of discipline

that make the grit of life

less grinding,

the collision of will on will

less violent:

yellow lines on roads,

meters on the curb,

patrol boys at crossings,

lights that guide us with bright control

or blinking warn us in our hastiness.

.Teach us, 0 Lord,

to see in them a refraction from flashing Sinai,

to see Your moving finger in their work,

to give them our 'ready and quick assent,

to delight in them

as men made new

in Your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Through Him we pray.

Amen.

Martin H. Franzmann (1907 - 1976)

ONE SOLITARY LIFE

: Anonymous


He was born in an obscure village,

the child of a peasant woman.

He grew up in still another village, where he worked

in a carpenter shop until he was thirty.

Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office.

He never had a family or owned a house. He didn't

go to college. Be never visited a big city.

He never traveled two hundred miles from the place

where he was born. He did none of the things

one usually associates with greatness.

He had no credentials but him elf. He was only

thirty-three when the tide of public opinion

turned against him. His friends ran away. He was

turned over to his enemies and went through

the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross

between two thieves. While he was dying,

his executioners gambled for his clothing,

the only property he had on earth.

When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave

through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today

he is the central figure of the human race

and the leader of mankind's progress.

All the armies that ever marched, all the navies

that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat,

all the kings that ever reigned, put together,

have not affected the life of man

on this earth as much as that

Liberation Theology

What is Liberation Theology?


With all the upset over Jeremiah Wright and his so-called Liberation Theology, many have been asking what Liberation Theology is all about. Well, it is not very complicated! It is the simple belief that in the struggles of poor and oppressed people against their powerful and rich oppressors, God sides with the oppressed against the oppressors.

Those who adhere to Liberation Theology point out that all through the Bible we find that God always champions the cause of those who are poor and beaten down as they struggle for dignity, freedom and economic justice. When the children of Israel cry out for help as they suffer the agonies of their enslavement under Pharaoh, God hears their cry and joins them in their fight for freedom. God sides with the Jews as they seek deliverance from Egyptian domination.

Later on, when the Israelites are settled in the Holy Land, there emerge rich and powerful Jews who live lives of affluence without regard for the sufferings of the poor. In response to their indifference, God raises up prophets to decry the plight of the poor and call the rich to repent. The prophets of ancient Israel challenged, in the name of God, what was happening to those who were victimized in an unjustly stratified society.

When we come to the New Testament, we find that Jesus also comes as a liberator. Mary, the mother of Jesus, responds to the annunciation that she will give birth to the Messiah by claiming that it will one day be said of her soon-to-be-born son:

…He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent away empty.—Luke 1:51-53

Jesus himself, in his initial sermon, declares that He has come to bring “good news for the poor” and to “preach deliverance to the captives” (Luke 4:18-19).

The social implications of this biblical theme of liberation have been taken up by a variety of oppressed groups over the past fifty years. Christian feminists have claimed that Jesus came to liberate women from oppression—especially as oppression of women manifests itself in certain Islamic countries, as well as in the male domination encouraged by some forms of Christianity.

Gays who are Christians also have made Jesus their liberator as they have fought for dignity and acceptance in what they believe to be a homophobic society.

And of course, Jeremiah Wright has declared for the African-American community that, in their struggle to overcome the oppression they have had to endure at the hands of what he believes is a racist society, the God revealed in scripture will fight for them.

There will be those who will claim that Liberation Theology is nothing more than a baptized version of a Marxist revolutionary ideology. There is good reason for this because some prominent Latin American theologians have integrated Marxism with a theology of liberation and offered it up as justification for the violent overthrow of what they considered to be evil dictatorships. But it must be noted that most forms of Liberation Theology have nothing to do with Marxism and violent revolutions.

Certainly, Jeremiah Wright is advocating neither Marxism nor violent revolution. What Rev. Wright does say is that, as the African-American community endeavors to establish itself as a people who are both equal with whites and deserving of the dignity that God wills for all human beings, they have God on their side.

Rev. Wright’s words may seem harsh and his style may be strident, but that just may be the way that those of us in the white establishment react. For his African-American brothers and sisters, there may be a different reaction. Many of them will hear him as an angry prophet in the tradition of ancient Israel.

To we white folks, Jeremiah Wright sounds threatening. But we might ask ourselves if we deserve to be threatened.


Tony Campolo

The hatred which divides nation from nation

The hatred which divides nation from nation,

race from race, class from class,

Father forgive.

The covetous desires of men and nations

to possess what is not their own,

Father, forgive.

The greed which exploits the labours of men,

and lays waste the earth,

Father, forgive.

Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others,

Father, forgive.

Our indifference to the plight of the homeless

and the refugee,

Father, forgive.

The pride which leads to trust in ourselves

and not in God,

Father, forgive. Amen...

Coventry Cathedral Prayer (1962)

Holy Week is a call to follow Christ's austerities

Holy Week is a call to follow Christ's austerities,

the only legitimate violence,

the violence that he does to himself

and that he invites us to do to ourselves:

"Let those who would follow me deny themselves,"

be violent to themselves,

repress in themselves the outbursts of pride,

kill in their heart the outbursts of greed,

of avarice, of conceit, of arrogance.

Let them kill it in their heart.

This is what must be killed,

this is the violence that must be done,

so that out of it a new person may arise,

the only one who can build

a new civilization: .

a civilization of love.

Oscar Romero

March 19, 1978



The Violence of Love

ON GROWING OLD

When the signs of age begin to mark my, body (and still more

when they touch my mind); when the ill that is to diminish me

or carry me off strikes from without or, is born within me; when

the painful moment comes in which I suddenly awaken to the

fact that I am ill or growing old; and above all at that last moment

when I feel I am losing hold of myself and am absolutely passive

within the hands of the great unknown forces that have formed

me; in all those dark moments, 0 God, grant that I may understand

that it is you (provided only my faith is strong enough) who

are painfully parting the fibers of my being in order to penetrate

to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within

youself. Amen




Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

yourself. Amen.

A MEDITATION BY MARTIN LUTHER

This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.




- Martin Luther

The Devil’s Reparations for Haiti’s Debt?

by Elizabeth Palmberg 01-15-2010

So Pat Robertson, to whom the media are still inexplicably willing to pay attention, is saying that Haiti is being punished for an alleged pact with the devil?



This might be a reasonable time to point out that, when Haiti threw out the French, it was the latter who were on the side of evil — first, as slave-owners (Haiti was the only modern nation created by a slave revolt). And then, when Haitians had finally attained freedom from plantation chattel slavery, France forced Haiti to pay reparations to the former slave-owners, to compensate them for their loss of “property.”



You read that sentence right — the ex-slaves were forced to pay their former masters, the equivalent of $21 billion (billion-with-a-b) in today’s dollars. It took the tiny nation from 1825 to 1947 — that’s right, over a century — to finish paying off this “debt,” a crushing burden which bled away resources for education and economic development.



I’ll leave it up to you to decide where the devil is in that history. But if you want to be on the side of the angels — and God’s Jubilee economics, as laid out in the Old Testament — then surf over to Jubilee USA and see their advocacy points for Haiti today.