CLOUT Nehemiah Assembly

CLOUT Crowd 2
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

CLOUT (Citizens of Louisville Organized and United Together) had their largest and perhaps most successful meeting ever tonight. I haven't heard official numbers, but it would appear that well over 1,000 people met together to ask our local leaders to meet with us to develop and implement a plan for implementing Justice.

Our two issues tonight were to get eligible children enrolled in KCHIP (a children's healthcare plan) and to stop the closing of five swimming pools in our poorer neighborhoods. We got enthusiastic agreements from all officials involved.

Man! What a night!

God has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to
do justice,
to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?

~Micah 6:8

Easter at Jeff Street

Easter Confetti
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can't establish truth.

Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate.

Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.

When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.

Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Easter at Jeff Street

Easter Day 1
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices...

~Charles Kingsley

Easter at Jeff Street

Balloonacy 2
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

For whenever anyone bears the pain of unjust suffering because of consciousness of God, that is a grace.

But what credit is there if you are patient when beaten for doing wrong? But if you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good, this is a grace before God.

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.

"He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten; instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly.

~Peter

Easter at Jeff Street

Larry and Rick
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death...Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony.

~John Muir

Easter at Jeff Street

Easter Day 2
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

And ironically, in making that decision (towards non-violent resistence), Jesus was more dangerous to the ruling elite and to the Roman occupiers than were ...all the other rebel leaders to come.

Because while they could be crushed through military might, Jesus' way could not be crushed. In fact, Jesus would later dismantle the power and fear of the cross, the symbol of Roman execution, by inviting his followers to take it up and carry it.

From a sermon by Pastor Cindy

Easter at Jeff Street

Balloonacy 1
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

Clarence Jordan was once being given a red-carpet tour of a brand new church, which had spared no expense.

"You see that cross?" said the local preacher, "We paid ten thousand dollars for that cross alone!"

"Imagine that!" said Clarence. "They used to give them to Christians for free!"

~About Clarence Jordan

Birdsong and Creek Music at the Farm

Goatwalker's 16th

Goatwalker's 16th
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

The Urban Goatwalker - our church coffee house - celebrated its 16th anniversary in February. In honor of that, I thought I'd post Rick Axtell's explanation of where the name came from...
======
The Urban Goatwalker?

The name comes from a book by the late Jim Corbett, an anti-war activist and environmentalist. He led the movement that provided sanctuary to refugees fleeing the wars of Central America in the 1980s.

The book, Goatwalking, builds on Corbett’s experience learning to survive in the desert with the help of a couple of milk goats. As he (illegally) helped refugees make their way to safety, Corbett found that the nourishment provided by a goat or two can provide sustenance in even the harshest environments.
Desert lands. Wilderness.

Corbett explains: “Goatwalking is a way to be at home in wildlands, living on milk and wild foods. It is a means of subsistence. It is also a form of errantry.”

In other words, Goatwalking represents the desire to live freely and simply; to be at home in the desert, in tune with the earth, and out of tune with the false values of a materialistic society. It is a symbol of stepping out “beyond society’s established ways, to live according to one’s inner feelings.”

The desert has always had spiritual and political dimensions. Like Hebrew prophets and desert mystics, Goatwalkers are in touch with the spirits that inhabit profound silence and solitude. They know how to live on what their surroundings offer them and they experience such offerings as a gift. And they demonstrate the type of “livelihood that permits subjugated communities to walk away from the state.”

As Goatwalkers in the desert, Corbett and his friends from Latin America lived beyond the influence of the powers that compel us to conform, and that threaten us when we don’t. Goatwalking develops the clear vision that enables determined resistance to false social expectations and powerful challenges to an illegitimate order.

Perhaps Goatwalking can occur even in urban settings.

Walk away with us. Find nourishment. Listen to some new voices.