“This Is My Hope, This Is My Prayer” by President Barack Obama

Finally!  We have a leader, a President of the United States that is speaking for equality and the rights of every individual…and “doing the right thing.

This speach says it all, so I will not bog this post down with my own words…BUT…

Those of us that are dealing with the homeless situation in Lakewood, NJ and every other area of the United States should, in my belief, use the following words as an inspiriation to each of your callings to help people in your neck of the woods.  Please use President Obama’s words to motivate yourself to “do the right thing” in ALL circumstances of your life.

Enough said — PLEASE READ ON!
Pastor Charles ‘Chuck’ Gianakos
Executive Director, PassionWorks, Inc.
Founder, Project Reflection Ministries & Church

Remarks of President Barack Obama
At The National Prayer Breakfast
Thursday, February 5th, 2009 Washington, DC

Good morning. I want to thank the Co-Chairs of this breakfast, Representatives Heath Shuler and Vernon Ehlers. I’d also like to thank Tony Blair for coming today, as well as our Vice President, Joe Biden, members of my Cabinet, members of Congress, clergy, friends, and dignitaries from across the world.

Michelle and I are honored to join you in prayer this morning. I know this breakfast has a long history in Washington, and faith has always been a guiding force in our family’s life, so we feel very much at home and look forward to keeping this tradition alive during our time here.

It’s a tradition that I’m told actually began many years ago in the city of Seattle. It was the height of the Great Depression, and most people found themselves out of work. Many fell into poverty. Some lost everything.

The leaders of the community did all that they could for those who were suffering in their midst. And then they decided to do something more: they prayed. It didn’t matter what party or religious affiliation to which they belonged. They simply gathered one morning as brothers and sisters to share a meal and talk with God.

These breakfasts soon sprouted up throughout Seattle, and quickly spread to cities and towns across America, eventually making their way to Washington. A short time after President Eisenhower asked a group of Senators if he could join their prayer breakfast, it became a national event. And today, as I see presidents and dignitaries here from every corner of the globe, it strikes me that this is one of the rare occasions that still brings much of the world together in a moment of peace and goodwill.

I raise this history because far too often, we have seen faith wielded as a tool to divide us from one another – as an excuse for prejudice and intolerance. Wars have been waged. Innocents have been slaughtered. For centuries, entire religions have been persecuted, all in the name of perceived righteousness.

There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that some of our beliefs will never be the same. We read from different texts. We follow different edicts. We subscribe to different accounts of how we came to be here and where we’re going next – and some subscribe to no faith at all.

But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.

We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The Torah commands, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” In Islam, there is a hadith that reads “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule – the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.

It is an ancient rule; a simple rule; but also one of the most challenging. For it asks each of us to take some measure of responsibility for the well-being of people we may not know or worship with or agree with on every issue. Sometimes, it asks us to reconcile with bitter enemies or resolve ancient hatreds. And that requires a living, breathing, active faith. It requires us not only to believe, but to do – to give something of ourselves for the benefit of others and the betterment of our world.

In this way, the particular faith that motivates each of us can promote a greater good for all of us. Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times. This is not only our call as people of faith, but our duty as citizens of America, and it will be the purpose of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that I’m announcing later today.

The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another – or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state. This work is important, because whether it’s a secular group advising families facing foreclosure or faith-based groups providing job-training to those who need work, few are closer to what’s happening on our streets and in our neighborhoods than these organizations. People trust them. Communities rely on them. And we will help them.

We will also reach out to leaders and scholars around the world to foster a more productive and peaceful dialogue on faith. I don’t expect divisions to disappear overnight, nor do I believe that long-held views and conflicts will suddenly vanish. But I do believe that if we can talk to one another openly and honestly, then perhaps old rifts will start to mend and new partnerships will begin to emerge. In a world that grows smaller by the day, perhaps we can begin to crowd out the destructive forces of zealotry and make room for the healing power of understanding.

This is my hope. This is my prayer.

I believe this good is possible because my faith teaches me that all is possible, but I also believe because of what I have seen and what I have lived.

I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion, even as she was the kindest, most spiritual person I’ve ever known. She was the one who taught me as a child to love, and to understand, and to do unto others as I would want done.

I didn’t become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college. It happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden revelation, but because I spent month after month working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down on their luck – no matter what they looked like, or where they came from, or who they prayed to. It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God’s spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose – His purpose.

In different ways and different forms, it is that spirit and sense of purpose that drew friends and neighbors to that first prayer breakfast in Seattle all those years ago, during another trying time for our nation. It is what led friends and neighbors from so many faiths and nations here today. We come to break bread and give thanks and seek guidance, but also to rededicate ourselves to the mission of love and service that lies at the heart of all humanity. As St. Augustine once said, “Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”

So let us pray together on this February morning, but let us also work together in all the days and months ahead. For it is only through common struggle and common effort, as brothers and sisters, that we fulfill our highest purpose as beloved children of God. I ask you to join me in that effort, and I also ask that you pray for me, for my family, and for the continued perfection of our union.

Thank you.

God’s Persistence…

 

My wife Vicky and I live off of Mantoloking Road in the Cedarwood Park area of Brick Township.  Like so many towns on the New Jersey shore in recent years, our neighborhood, once nicely wooded with streets heavily adorned with trees and fall foliage, has succumbed to office complexes, strip-malls, cement, and white lined blacktop parking lots.  In fact, our whole region has altered its scenic look to make way for consistently heavy influxes of people, which then leads to more housing needs, bigger or new school complexes, a need for more places of employment, more office buildings, an increase in the number of places to shop, and an expansion of our roadways so we can transport ourselves around to all the places we need to go.  Our schedules are full, our stress levels high, and there barely any places to walk around in woodsy silence anymore.One afternoon on a shopping excursion a couple of weeks ago, I parked the car in one of those mall parking lots, got out, locked the car door, and proceeded to hunt around for an abandoned parking lot shopping cart that I could use rather than grabbing a new one at the front door of the store.  At that moment in the distance right in the middle of the lot my eye caught a bit of color stemming up through the solid blacktop, the only other color within thousands of square feet of black background and white lines.  As I walked closer to the color, I discovered it to be a flower!  Yes, a flower with petals of vibrant blue and violet!  I looked around with wonder as I could not find another hint of plant life within thousands of square feet of where I was standing, yet this one tiny plant had found the only thin crack in a four inch thick sheet of tar roadway…and it rose up to bloom and persisted on giving life and color to what I consider to be a dark and cheerless landscape.

 

I laughed to myself and smiled up to God and thought, “Boy, your persistence is amazing.  Your beauty and creation will not stop coming through for us no matter how hard we try to block it out and pave over it!”  And what timing!  I just finished reading Thomas Merton’s book, “When The Trees Say Nothing.”  In the introduction, aptly titled, “The Forest Is My Bride”, there is a quote from Merton’s Waters Of Siloe which reads

When the monks had found their homes, they not only settled there, for better or worse, but they sank their roots in the ground and fell in love with their woods…forest and field, sun and wind and sky, earth and water, all speak the same silent language, reminding the monk that he is here to develop like the things that grow all around him.     (Waters Of Siloe, pp. 273-274)

I am burned out and tired.  This ministry in which I serve is taking its toll on my health.  Merton’s writing on nature, while very simple brought me to peace and has helped me to stay in tune with God’s work around me rather than the human work around me.  I remember that God is God and God will always work wonders, even when things seem black and cheerless.  This is the way with Jesus.  God sent us his son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life (John 3:16).  Times were not so wonderful 2000 years ago, black and cheerless back when Jesus physically walked the earth within his human vessel.  The people were looking for a savior to bring them hope.  God heard the people’s cry and delivered his promise on that wonderful morning when Jesus the Christ was born.  I must remember and meditate on the belief that God’s persistence is and always will be amazing and no matter how much life’s burdens seem to weigh me down and block out God’s creational and eternal beauty…God will never stop coming through for me and us!

Lo, in the silent night, a child to God is born.  And all is brought again that ere was lost or lorn.  Could but thy soul, O man, become a silent night!  God would be born in thee and set all things aright.
(15^th Century / Author Unknown)

Pastor Chuck Gianakos <><
Executive Director, PassionWorks, Inc.
Founder, Project Reflection Ministries