My neighbors, and others living in the thousands of working class neighborhoods throughout the country, are directly feeling the crunch of the increasing gap between the rich and the working class. They know directly and first hand that the people they are closest to and could become at any moment are the homeless that hang out in our community. They know and have a first-hand grip on words like Warren Beatty's (our man Bulworth) recent guest editorial in The New York Times who forcefully shouted out the following: "One hundred million Americans left behind in the prosperity of the global economy; that we need as a society to achieve universal health care, lift 35 million of our people out of poverty, a segment of our population that has remained virtually constant for 20 years, to give the 25 percent of our children who live in poverty a decent start in life, and to protect our environment and improve our schools and to rouse the nonvoting half of our population to participate in public life."

Mr. Beatty is reminding us of the biblical mandate for us to get mobilized and organized again to address the marginal, "the outsiders," in our society. More important, to mobilize and organize the marginal outsider again so that they can themselves address the increasing gap between those who have and those who have not in our society.

Although Mr. Beatty was addressing everyone, his message has particular bearing on the life and mission of the church. Perhaps it is time, again, for the Episcopal Church and other denominations to begin to think beyond feeding programs, handouts, and charity as an appropriate response to people in need in our society. We need a much deeper and broader strategy to respond to Mr. Beatty's editorial and to the people in my neighborhood of Dunbar John Springs living on the edge, people who with the slightest nudge could drop out of society altogether.

Perhaps it's time for the Episcopal Church and other denominations to lay to rest its 25-year obsession with gender wars, and recognize that women and gays are fully human beings and have equal access to the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of membership and leadership in the Episcopal Church. Perhaps, it is time for the church to address what is really on peoples' minds in our society: making a living wage, having safe and friendly neighborhoods, decent viable schools, and having access to the basic necessities of life like health care and adequate housing.

Perhaps it is time for the church as a community and an institution to enter into the life of people on the margins in order to save itself – to risk death in order to have real life. Perhaps it is time for the Episcopal Church to listen to Warren Beatty's final editorial words, "If not now, when"?
Paul W. Buckwalter
Tucson, AZ

 A POLITICS OF PLACE

Thank you so much for sending me 'The Witness' June issue, "Embracing a Politics of Place: The Penobscot Watershed." It was beautiful. A wealth of issues covered. As a socialist, I disagreed with some of Kirkpatrick Sale's philosophy, but found the interview thought-provoking, graceful and illuminating. Have marked passages to copy from "Bringing creation into the church," "On being a woman bishop," and "Favoring justice over lying fallow." Will send the magazine on to my niece Roan Katahdin, who changed her name following a walk from Mt. Katahdin to Mt. Roan (i.e. the Appalachian Trail).

I also invite Witness readers to write to Mordechai Vanunu and to get involved in the international campaign for his release [see TW 10/99]. His address is Mordechai Vanunu, Ashkelon Prison, Ashkelon, Israel. For more information contact U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, 2206 Fox Avenue, Madison, WI 53711, phone/fax (608)257-4764.
Jeanie Shaterian
Berkeley, CA

What a wonderful experience it was to read the June copy of 'The Witness'. It was like fresh air blowing in through an open window. I found myself reading and nodding my head "yes" and finding the affirmation of many beliefs, thoughts I have in that which was written. We do so like to find others who "agree" with us, don't we?

I'm particularly intrigued with the note about future issues, especially "pilgrimage" [see TW 7-8/99]. I have been walking the medieval route to Santiago de Compostela, Spain for the past three years (in two-week segments). This October, I plan to go to France and walk for three weeks the French part of the Camino. I will cross the Pyrenees at St. Jean de Pied and enter Spain through Pamplona where I started walking before. Pilgrimage is a subject which intrigues me greatly.
Sandy Lenthall
Williamsburg, VA

 HONORARY DOCTORATE

I was THRILLED when I read that Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann had received an honorary doctorate from the Episcopal Divinity School [see TW 7-8/99]. I agree with all the reasons and observations that EDS made in granting her this honor.

I met Jeanie at the 1997 Finger Lakes Conference (Province II of the Episcopal Church) as she was the keynote speaker and participant. I was still recovering from some serious disability, discrimination and retaliation and sought solace and restoration in the conference. Her being the keynote speaker called me there. I encountered Jeanie's presence to me in this way that I shall treasure and never forget. Within the communities of baptized Christians, she is one of the few people that related to me as whole again. May you feel my full sense of presence to you. This comes with thanksgiving and blessings of Life.
Catherine Edwards
Rochester, NY

 WEDGWOOD SHOOTING

When I turned on the television and saw the words "Shooting in Fort Worth Church" spread across the screen I felt sick. It is a terrible thing to see any city suffer such an attack. But when it is one's own beloved city, the sense of dread and horror is overwhelming. Despite being in the third-fastest-growing county in Texas, Fort Worth still is a large city that feels like a small town. That means many people in Fort Worth will know someone who was at Wedgwood Baptist Church Wednesday night, or they will know someone who knows someone who was at the church.

That was brought home to me after the shooting as I was waiting in line to donate blood at the Carter Blood Center in Fort Worth's medical district. Although it wasn't the Carter office closest to the church, I talked with people whose relatives or friends had been at the church or who had some tie to it. Among them were two Mexican-American construction workers who had worked on building projects at the church, an African-American "biker for Christ" who had a buddy who had a son at the youth rally Wednesday evening and three downtown businessmen who knew Wedgwood's pastor.

Also waiting were an African-American sales executive who had a customer who went to the church, a young Anglo mother whose baby sitter attended the church, an older Asian woman whose yard was mowed by a Baptist seminary student and an older Anglo gentleman who said his wife's best friend attended the church.

But what struck me even more about the folks waiting to donate blood was the fact that most of them had no personal connection to the church. This mannerly, motley crew was made up of people of many races, ages, occupations and faiths. They had only one thing in common: They all lived in Fort Worth, and they were stunned, outraged and saddened beyond belief that such a violent attack had happened in their town to people who, except for an accident of local geography, might have been their next-door neighbors.That fact alone was more than enough to make them feel deeply connected to the victims and their families and to the stunned congregation of Wedgwood Baptist Church.

That was true even though many never even had been to the Wedgwood area of the city, much less to the church. Others, like me, knew the church only from driving by it. My daughter attended a grade school only blocks from the church. For years, we lived in a neighborhood just north of it. The church was part of our daily landscape, a reference point to use when giving people directions. But even that tenuous connection proved a powerful bond as I watched heartbreaking footage of injured and dying people, traumatized teens and terrified parents. Those are my neighbors, and what hurts them hurts me.

In the days to come, this shooting in a church in Fort Worth will become just one more item on the steadily growing list of such incidents. It will be trotted out as a "sidebar" story the next time some sick or frustrated man with a gun walks into a school, church or business in Somewhere, America, and begins shooting. But here in Fort Worth, it will remain the main story for a long time. For those people we saw on television Wednesday night aren't just interchangeable characters in a story called Violence in America. They are our neighbors, linked to us not only by a place on a map but by places in our hearts.

Katie Sherrod
Fort Worth, Texas