‘Peace House Community Journal’ Archives
Order and Chaos
from the series Peace House Community Journal... By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby The Book of Genesis tells that in the beginning, God brought order out of chaos. We’ve been trying to do the same thing ever since, with varying degrees of success. For the most part, we seem to do okay, creating enough structure for society to function, but not enough to crush everyone. But even accomplishing “okay” is a struggle, and maintaining requires a constant balancing act. We’ve seen what happens when things get too structured. Sometimes totalitarianism results, where thought, speech, and behavior are all curtailed in the name of some “greater value.” People, either as individuals or groups, are sacrificed for something intangible. Even if it doesn’t get quite that bad, too many rules still cause problems. George Orwell, an ardent socialist, wrote a lot about the problems he saw in other socialists. Many of them, he believed, embraced socialism because it would make [...]
Now You See Them, Now You Don’t (But You Should)
from the series Peace House Community - A Place to Belong By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby I think everyone is familiar with the magic trick where a coin disappears from the magician’s hand and then reappears out of someone’s ear. When we were little, we believed the coin really had disappeared. As we got older, we knew the magician had simply used a sleight of hand, and they were still holding the coin, but if the magician did the trick well, we were still willing to be fooled. Many of the “solutions” to homelessness and similar problems are just variations of the coin trick. Unfortunately, I find many of the “solutions” to homelessness and similar problems are just variations of the coin trick. The solutions don’t really solve homelessness. Instead, they try to make the homeless “disappear”, and if the solution looks appealing enough, everyone is supposed to applaud. On some level, everyone knows the homeless still walk the streets, trying to find safe [...]
Mosaic or Melting Pot?
Dominant Theologies Denied Marginalized People from the series Peace House Community Journal... By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby I recently read The Cross and Lynching Tree by James Cone. Cone was one of the first and most respected Black Liberation Theologians who emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that the dominant Christian theology denied the experiences of minorities and had nothing to offer marginalized peoples. The Cross and the Lynching Tree was Cone’s final book before his death. He pointed out the similarities between Jesus’ crucifixion and the experiences of Black Americans who were lynched in this country. He also expressed shock that so few theologians, Black or White, could see the similarities. When he laid out the parallels, I was shocked, too, that I had never seen them, nor heard about them in my fifty plus years of attending church. Individual, cultures, and groups can have blind spotsThe experience was a little surreal, and it reminded me [...]
