‘Peace House Community Journal’ Archives
Ensuring That Our Own Power is Used Wisely and Humanely
from the series Peace House Community Journal... By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby I recently reread James H. Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree, which looks at the parallels between Jesus’ crucifixion and the lynchings that occurred during the Jim Crow era (1880-1940). Cone expressed his astonishment that no American theologian, white or black, saw the similarities between an innocent man being tortured and executed with the consent of the political and religious leaders, and the lynchings that took place in this country. Cone’s book covers many aspects of Christianity and lynching in a brief time (166 pages), but one of the most telling is the observation that crucifixion and lynching each played the same role in their respective societies. While they both inflicted tremendous suffering on the victim, the true target was the victim’s community. Those with the power to lynch others made sure the “others” knew they had the power, knew that what happened to one [...]
The Food Desert is Expanding
from the series Peace House Community Journal... By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby Food Deserts are neighborhoods where residents lack adequate access to food. Residents of a country as wealthy as the United States shouldn’t have to worry about getting enough to eat. In other words, we shouldn’t have Food Deserts. Unfortunately, in a country where economic statistics carry more weight than human need, things don’t run as they should. In the last six months, two feeding sites that served take out dinners in Ventura Village closed. Between them, they were serving over 700 meals a night. I don’t know the situation in the other neighborhoods covered by the alley, but I suspect many residents there rely on feeding sites or food shelves to meet one of the most basic human needs. Economics says that the United States is still the wealthiest country in history. The number of people going hungry say that economics is measuring the wrong things. Understandably, a lot of the [...]
Greece’s Golden Age: Passion and/or Wisdom?
from the series Peace House Community Journal... By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby Many years ago, I heard a debate about whether Greece’s Golden Age was represented by the great poets such as Homer, or by the philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Why should this matter to us now, thousands of years later? Because it might give us some insight into today’s situation.Homer gave us epic tales involving a vibrant world of violent passions, both positive and negative. Wars were fought over trivial matters. Gods and men competed for glory. Each individual had unique powers and personalities. By contrast, the philosophers sat around and discussed. Plato’s Republic, one of the classics of philosophy, contains no action other than people making speeches. Their goal is to discover reality (or however Plato phrased it; I haven’t read him in over 30 years). They focused on universal truths that applied equally to everyone, not individual people. In our modern [...]
