Liturgy of the cosmos

In an interview with Derek Jensen in The Sun (5/02), Thomas Berry suggests that "there is a cosmological order that might be called the ‘great liturgy,’ and that the human project is validated by ritual participation in this natural order. Our job, as humans, is to be a part of the great hymn of praise that is existence.

"We have lost touch with the cosmological order. The precise hour of the day is more important to us than the diurnal cycles. We’re so busy worrying – Will I get to work on time? Will I avoid rush-hour traffic? Will I get to watch my favorite television program? – that we have forgotten the spiritual impact of the daily moments of transition. The dawn is mystical, a moment to experience the wonder and depth of fulfillment found in the sacred. The same is true of nightfall, and of bedtime, when we pass from consciousness to sleep and our subconscious comes forward. Children, in particular, know that bedtime is magical. Their parents talk to them in a different way at this time: tender, sensitive, quiet.

"There are magical moments in the yearly cycle, too. One is the winter solstice, the turning point between a declining and an ascending sun. It’s a moment of death in nature, and a moment when everything is reborn. We have lost touch with this once intimate experience.

"Then, in the springtime, humans are meant to wonder at the new life and to ceremonially observe succession. This leads to the fulfillment of summer, and then to the harvest, another time of gratitude and celebration, but also the beginning of the movement toward death."

Blue/green movement

A small but growing "blue/green" movement is bringing labor organizers and environmental activists together to challenge threats to economic and biological sustainability, Bryony Schwan of Women’s Voices for the Earth writes in Resist newsletter (4/02).

"One of the most important blue/green efforts of late has been the diverse coalition of labor and environmental organizations – including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Sierra Club, the United Steelworkers of America, District 11, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, the Just Transition Alliance and many others – who have been working to find a solution to global warming that protects workers and the economy."

Schwan reports that in February of this year, "the coalition (whose unions represent more than three million workers) along with the Union of Concerned Scientists released a joint statement stating, ‘Global warming is a problem that needs to be solved. The science is clear on that point. The only question is whether we will approach the global warming problem in a way that protects workers and communities, or a way that further enriches large energy corporations.’

"More work lies ahead for these new blue/green efforts. Labor unions must educate their rank and file about environmental issues, that environmentalists are not their enemies and that worker-friendly solutions can be found. Environmental groups must educate their members that supporting organized labor in their struggles and looking for environmental solutions that protect workers are critical to the success of their own campaigns."

Healthcare for women prisoners in "dark ages"

As far as healthcare goes, women in prison "might as well be living in the dark ages," Cynthia Cooper writes in The Nation (5/6/02). "In the area of reproductive amd breast cancers, prisons fail in prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, continuity of care, alleviation of pain, rehabilitation, recovery – and concern."

In 1999, Amnesty International documented "egregious violations of women’s medical care" in a report titled "Not Part of My Sentence," and issued an alert in 2001 "questioning the unexplained death of nine women in the California system," Cooper says.

"Effectively protected from public scrutiny, the barbed-wire medical system is uncoordinated, underfunded and has almost zero accountability. Doctors are ill-trained and overburdened, and even competent ones can be trumped by correctional personnel. ‘It’s like Alice going down into a rabbit hole,’ says Bonnie Kerness, a lawyer who directs the American Friends Service Committee’s Prison Watch project in New Jersey.

"A pattern of failures across the nation points to systemic pathology. ‘Every single state will tell you women’s healthcare is the top problem in women’s prisons,’ says Lucy Armendariz, a former ombudsman for women prisoners in California, now working as counsel to the state’s legislature. The federal government refuses Medicaid payments for prisoners, placing the entire burden on states. ‘And it’s pretty much political suicide when you say, "Let’s give more money for prisoners,"’ explains Armendariz."

AIDS adds to African food crisis

The food crisis in Southern Africa is being exacerbated by the AIDS epidemic there, The Christian Science Monitor reported in June.

"As Southern Africa struggles with its worst food crisis in at least a decade – some 8 million people currently need emergency food aid – relief workers say AIDS has added greatly to the problem," Nicole Itano wrote (6/11/02). "The loss of laborers and resources to AIDS has pushed many families to the edge of survival.

"‘Everyone believed that this [AIDS] epidemic was [just] a health issue. It’s only later that we realized that it impacted every single sector of development,’ says Marcela Villarreal, chief of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) population and development service. ‘Food security is obviously the highest issue on rural people’s agendas because they have to eat ... every day. Because they are impoverished and because they have HIV/AIDS, they are losing their ability to deal with this most basic of needs.’

"More than two-thirds of the population in the 25 most affected African countries live in rural areas. In Malawi, one of the region’s poorest countries and one of the hardest hit by the current food crisis, some 80 percent of people make their living off the land. ...

"On the most basic level, AIDS steals the youngest and most able-bodied, denying communities their agricultural labor force. The FAO estimates that since 1985, at least 7 million agricultural workers have died in the 25 most affected African countries. By 2020, the organization says Malawi will have lost 14 percent of its agricultural workers, South Africa 20 percent, and Namibia 26 percent. ...

"‘Given that subsistence agriculture is by definition only at the subsistence level, the loss of a working adult has a major impact on agricultural production and often has broader implications for the community,’ says Chris Desmond, a researcher at the Health, Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division at the University of Natal in South Africa. ‘Also, with sickness, you often have extreme pressure on household resources. This can result in the sale of assets, which can often be the sale of very key assets that diminish the ability to produce.’"

Holy Land studies

A new academic journal devoted exclusively to the Holy Land – Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal – was launched by Continuum in July. Aimed at both an academic and wider public readership, the journal will focus on issues which have contemporary relevance and general public interest. Planned subjects include the Holy Land as a geographical and intercultural meeting-place, the Arab-Israeli conflict, religious and cultural pluralism, and interfaith dialogues.

Editor Michael Prior is the Chair of the Holy Land Research Project of St. Mary’s College (University of Surrey, UK). Prior is the author of The Bible and Colonialism: a Moral Critique, Western Scholarship and the History of Palestine, and Zionism and the State of Israel: A Moral Inquiry. He was invited to be the first Visiting Professor of Theology at Bethlehem University, where he prepared the university’s program in religious studies.

Associate Editor Nur Masalha, Director of the Holy Land Research Project, is a distinguished Palestinian academic whose most recent work is Imperial Israel and the Palestinians: The Politics of Expansion, 1967—2000.

The International Advisory Board includes Jews, Christians and Muslims, political scientists, historians, biblical scholars, Middle East specialists and theologians.

For more information or to subscribe, contact Michael Prior at priorm@smuc.ac.uk or Nur Masalha at masalhan@smuc.ac.uk.