Keep Our House Open!
If you'd prefer to mail your contribution, you can send it to:
Ecclesia Ministries
PO Box 1621
Newburgh, NY 12551
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Spread the Word
Help us spread the word about our work in the Burgh. In addition to telling your family and friends about us over lunch or dinner, you can also
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On the Agenda
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Every Day
4:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Our House is open
85 Grand Street
Sundays
1:30 p.m.
Weekly worship
85 Grand Street
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Thanks for opening this note and for hanging in there with us as we continue the journey. We've got some updates for you and, way below, you'll find Steve's reflection on Sunday's gospel reading - Mark 1:1-8. So, here goes:
- Our friend "George" is sitting tight as some immigration specialists work on his permanent resident status. He's been spending his nights at Our House and we're helping him keep track of his anti-seizure medications.
- "Frank's" in jail on felony assault charges stemming from the late night beating he gave to "Eddie" three Sundays ago. Eddie wasn't going to press charges but his parole officer insisted. While he continues to mend, Eddie facing eviction for failure to pay rent for the past six months.
- We took our friend "Daisy" to the addiction crisis center yesterday. She's hoping to finally break the habit that's had her in its grip for so very many years.
- Financial contributions from the Newburgh Interfaith Thanksgiving service totaled $805. The money will be used to keep Our House open. You can help too by clicking
 here. - Pat Parker and her son, John, served up Thanksgiving dinner to about 50 friends at Our House Thanksgiving afternoon. Our turkeyed out friends feasted on baked ziti, salad, pies and other goodies provided by the Cornwall Presbyterian Church. Drop us a note if you're interested in being a part of the growing contingent of servants in this crucial ministry.
- Dylan Wiand, our intern-extraordinaire this semester, made the switch to substitute caseworker this week when he filled in for Ruth who was out of town helping care for our newest grandson. Dylan got some help from intrepid volunteer Betty Mumford as he served up dinner provided by our friends at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Rock Tavern.
- The New Jim Crow film series [we're co-sponsors] continues this month with the showing of Amazing Grace, a 32-minute film about creating and performing a musical inside Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, New York State's only maximum security prison for women. The free film will be shown 1 p.m., Saturday, December 27th, at the Newburgh Free Library which is just down the street from Hope.
- We've begun hosting a bible study in the parlors at 6 p.m. Saturday evenings. Five or six of us [residents and guests] gather to reflect on the next day's gospel reading and what it's saying to each of us. It's a safe place in which we can explore our relationship with God and one another. You'd be more than welcome to join us for this hour-long exploration.
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Midnight in the garden . . .
On the eve of the second Sunday in Advent, two of the scripture readings for the day - Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1:1-8 - remind me that we are called to exercise a prophetic voice, to speak truth to power. That call has become abundantly clear during the last two weeks as grand juries in Ferguson, MO, and Staten Island, refused to indict white police officers in the deaths of two black men.
You've followed the stories, I'm sure. It the case of Michael Brown, it seems that Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson did everything right. In the case of Eric Garner, the facts seem less clear. What is clear is that two black men are dead, that everyone involved in those incidents is deeply wounded, that communities have been disrupted, property destroyed, and so many of us have come to see the police not as women and men committed to protecting and serving us but as people tasked with the job of keeping us in line at all costs.
Thomas Merton is credited with coining the term "systemic evil."
Systemic evil identifies a complex system in which each small activity can seem meritorious, even virtuous. Yet, the output of the system, the product of connecting the individual actions together, is evil. In an evil system, each participant feels that her/his part of the process is good. Each person in the in the system does a good and responsible job. Filing is done well; lawyers fight hard to win, etc. Participants can even feel morally righteous. Yet, the reality is that each participant is part of the process that produces the evil. If the participants never look at what they are producing, if they each limit their vision to only their litt le piece, they never feel responsible for the evil outcome. The evil is blamed on the system-as though the system has a soul and a free will all its own. Perhaps this is the greatest horror of systemic evil. The group feels no corporate responsibility. Individuals feel no personal responsibility. Evil is spewed into the world but no one apologizes or repents. Instead the very people who unleashed the destruction are applying for promotions, running for political office and accepting awards for a job well done. That is certainly true when it comes to our criminal justice system, a system that says it's okay to shoot Michael Brown to death for stealing cigar wrappers and mistreating a store owner, that says it's okay to cause the death of Eric Garner because he was selling "loosies" on the street, a system in which straight-faced people of good will and filled with righteousness blame the victim for what happened.
The reality is that, per capita, more black men die in police custody each year than white males. The reality is that, per capita, more black men are arrested each year then white men. The reality is that, per capita, more black men are convicted each year than white men. And, the reality is that, per capita, more black men are imprisoned in this country than white men. Those are facts. It is also a fact that crime rates and drug use are not significantly different among whites and people of color.
We can argue the merits of the two cases I've mentioned, but we cannot argue with the truth of racism, an evil that permeates our society, our culture . . . our entire way of life including our religious institutions which sit idly by, passive, if not willing, participants.
If we are ever going to prepare the way of the Lord, we have to level the mountains of bigotry that keep our sisters and brothers in the valley of despair. If we are ever going to create a way for the Lord, we are going to have to stop killing God's children because we - collectively - see them as inferior and expendable. It doesn't matter if they're big guys trying to make a living selling untaxed cigarettes, frustrated young men hoping to get high, women and children in the wrong place when the drone strikes, or a schizophrenic Texas death row inmate.
Like you, I take Jesus seriously. Like you, I know he told us to love God and others, even our enemies. Like you, I know that we are called to do to others as we would have them do to us. Like you, I know that when Michael Brown's life slipped away on that Ferguson street, a part of me also died. Like you, I know that when Eric Garner died on the way to the hospital, a part of me was lost. And, like you, I know in my heart of hearts, that we must stand up and say, "Stop! No more!" and every day do all we can to make God's dream a reality.
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Curse the darkness - light a candle. Be a candle.
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