VA DOC Can No Longer Afford Hand Soap

3 hours of labor for a small bar of this 

Finances must be getting tight in Virginia's Department of Corrections. Here's a notice that was recently posted for inmates at one of the Commonwealth's state prisons:

TO:  OFFENDER POPULATION

FROM: EARL R. BARKSDALE, WARDEN

DATE:  OCTOBER 1, 2013

Effective November 1, 2013, BKKC will no longer issue Lisa Soap to all offenders. Lisa Soap will ONLY be issued to indigent offenders as part of the indigent package. All other offenders must purchase soap from the Commissary.

Meanwhile, the cost of a bar of commissary soap ranges from 78¢ for a small bar of Irish Spring to $1.61 for the Coast brand at this particular facility, but the minimum hourly wage for prison labor is only 27¢ (45¢ an hour for skilled jobs). And thirty earning hours a week is the maximum allowed.

Most of those who do have jobs, an estimated 15%, according to my source, are paid at the lowest 27¢ rate for a maximum earning of $8.10, with 5% of that deducted for any outstanding court fines and/or child support payments. Most inmates must also pay for their own toothpaste, deodorant or any other self-care or snack items, or for things like a plastic spoon (5¢) or a plastic coffee cup (74¢).

Persons who are fortunate enough to have friends or family to provide spending money for them have 5% of that deducted for any fines or court costs and 10% for a forced savings of up to $1000 to be available upon release.

The majority of the guys, I'm told, are too embarrassed to have anyone know they have to rely on a monthly indigent package (two bars of soap, a small toothbrush, a razor, 4 oz. shampoo and cheap roll on deodorant) so they pass on it--or beg, borrow or steal.

Sad.

Text of Closing Words of Kennedy's Last Speech

A handbill circulating in Dallas just prior to Kennedy's assassination

November marks the 50th Anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, an event I clearly remember. I recently ran across the following excerpt of timely closing remarks he had prepared for an evening State Democratic Committee meeting in Austin on the day he was assassinated:

"... this is a time for courage and a time for challenge. Neither conformity nor complacency will do. Neither the fanatics nor the fainthearted are needed. And our duty as a Party is not to our Party alone, but to the nation, and, indeed, to all mankind. Our duty is not merely the preservation of political power but the preservation of peace and freedom.

"So let us not be petty when our cause is so great. Let us not quarrel amongst ourselves when our Nation's future is at stake.

"Let us stand together with renewed confidence in our cause -- united in our heritage of the past and our hopes for the future -- and determined that this land we love shall lead all mankind into new frontiers of peace and abundance."

You may also want to read http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/search?q=ten+things+you+can+do+for+your+country

Wages Remain Flat, Food Stamps Are Cut, While Corporate Profits Soar

"They trample on the heads of the poor 

as upon the dust of the ground

and deny justice to the oppressed."

Amos 2:7 (NIV)

According to a 10/24/13 piece in the Chicago Tribune, McDonald's President Jeff Stratton, while giving a speech recently, was interrupted by one of his many low wage employees, Nancy Salgado, who shouted, "Do you think this is fair that I have to be making $8.25 [an hour] when I've worked for McDonald's for 10 years?"

Stratton's only response was, "I've been there 40 years."

Salgado, with other protesters, was arrested. Stratton continued addressing the Union League Club's First Friday luncheon at an upscale Chicago restaurant.

McDonald's can clearly afford to pay a living wage, since it made an impressive $5.46 billion in profits for its shareholders last year, but instead has come up with a list of tips to give its employees on how they can make it on their poverty level incomes, including advice about getting a second job and applying for food stamps. Not surprisingly, the fast food industry is in the forefront of lobbying efforts to resist raising the minimum wage, which means their employees, with the aid of food stamps and other assistance to low income families, are subsidizing the rich.

Meanwhile, food stamps are being cut while subsidies to wealthy corporate farmers remain intact. This includes benefits to over a dozen wealthy Washington lawmakers, 13 Republicans and two Democrats, who are raking in millions from a program about which they themselves are writing legislation, clearly a conflict of interest. Rep. Stephen Fincher (R., Tenn.), for example,  collected $3.48 million between 1995 and 2012.

Read more:
http://americansforprosperity.org/legislativealerts/members-of-congress-get-millions-in-farm-subsidies/#ixzz2k71Usqoa

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/07/1253828/-50-billionaires-received-11-3-million-in-farm-welfare-could-get-more-in-new-farm-bill?detail=email

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-10-04/business/chi-minimum-wage-protesters-mcdonalds-20131004_1_mccafe-chief-restaurant-officer-mcdonald

http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2013/06/400-richest-in-us-own-more-than-poorest.html 

Why I'm Still Loving Jesus (10/24/11 post)

    Jesus hung with hookers, hung with hustlers, not with cops
    and he made wine from water, so the party wouldn’t stop,
    and Jesus, he loved everyone, just like his Mom and Dad
    ‘cause Jesus knew the difference between broken and plain bad...

    Jesus on the hillside had a message for the crowd
    he said, “blessed are the brokenhearted, but woe unto the proud,”
    and when they all got hungry, he took a couple loaves of bread
    and he passed himself around till everybody had been fed...

    Jesus in the temple yard trashed every loan shark’s booth,
    but Jesus said to Judas, “let those little children through,
    ‘cause Jesus hung with losers and with posers and with narcs,
    and he got what was coming to him somewhere in the dark…
                    - from Brad Yoder’s WWJD? 1998 all rights reserved 

In case anyone wonders why I remain passionate about following Jesus, here are just a few of my reasons:

1. Jesus never hated people or committed acts of violence against them. Rather, he taught his followers to practice prayer and good deeds toward enemies, not harm or kill them.

2. Jesus demonstrated a life of simplicity and generosity. He never advocated amassing wealth or becoming financially well to do. He not only stressed compassion for the poor, but chose to become one of them.

3. Jesus consistently preached and practiced care for the marginalized and disenfranchised. Even in a strictly patriarchal society he had women as close followers, and regularly enjoyed meals with people regarded as outcasts and misfits. He makes a hated and heretical Samaritan the hero in one of his best known parables, a story he uses as part of his answer to the question, “How does one gain eternal life?”

4. Jesus avoided dogmatic sermonizing and theologizing in favor of telling simple stories and teaching easy-to-understand (but hard to practice) truths like “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” “Do not hoard/store up treasures on earth,” and “Let your ‘yes’ be a simple ‘yes,’ and your ‘no,’ a ‘no.’

5. Jesus rejected expressions of worship that require elaborate temples, complex liturgies, and professional clergy. Private prayer is encouraged, and “two or three” are sufficient when it comes to communal prayer and worship.

6. Jesus demonstrates that God loves everyone, and that his “Father,” far from condemning the world, is heaven-bent on saving it.

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

                                                                                          - Matthew 9:9-13 (NIV)

Another Kind of "Border Security"

Here I wish for fewer walls and a warmer welcome, but...

To the extent that we see other people as our problem, that's the problem.

- paraphrase of Steven Covey

We hear a lot these days about the need for better border control in order to keep fellow human beings south of us from entering the U.S. from Mexico. That could become the topic of another post, but here I'd like to reflect on a different kind of "border security".

As noted in an earlier piece, each of us represents a kind of personal "kingdom" over which we need to exercise sovereign control. With God's help we can, and must, maintain internal "law and order" and a reign of peace and well being in the realm within our our own skin and our own skull, the latter being the throne room of the "kingdom of oneself".

All too often, we allow other people's misbehaviors to invade our inner space and rob us of our inner peace. I'm not advocating shutting others out of our lives, but each of us needs to define our boundaries and guard against others occupying emotional space in our heads without their having "gone through customs".

To illustrate, if I were employed at some mental health facility like Western State Hospital and were in a unit where a lot of residents said all kinds of irrational and hurtful things to me, I would need to have some way to avoid having their statements or actions get under my skin, while welcoming connections and relationships with each resident in whatever ways can be healthy and helpful. But I couldn't afford to take everything personally in a way that would only make things worse for me and render me less able to be of help to them.

Moral of the story: Instead of blaming other people for making us feel terrible and ruining our day, let's focus on maintaining more adequate border security. Then focus on maintaining good diplomatic relationships with our neighboring "kingdoms" while respecting their boundaries.

Was Rembrandt a Mennonite?

Mennonite minister Cornelius Anslo and wife

My brother-in-law J. Lloyd Wert and wife Beverly recently returned from a tour of Anabaptist sites in the Netherlands and Switzerland led by Myron and Esther Augsburger. One of many fascinating topics covered was the extent of Rembrandt’s association with Mennonites in Holland.

This piqued my own interest in the subject and led me to a paper by Dr. Kenneth Edmonds presented at a meeting of the Baptist World Alliance in Ede, Netherlands, in July 29, 2009.

Edmonds cites the Italian art critic Filippo Baldinucci in 1686 as stating explicitly that “The artist professed in those days the religion of the Menists (Mennonites).” Edmonds, however, doesn’t believe that Rembrandt ever officially joined the group but says recent research proves that Rembrandt had close ties with Amsterdam’s Waterlander Mennonite Community,  particularly through Hendrick Uylenburgh, a Mennonite art dealer who ran an artists’ studio in which Rembrandt worked from 1631 to 1635. 

Rembrandt actually lived in the Uylenburgh house for a time and  met his future wife Saskia there, according to Edmonds, who goes on to say that this led to his getting commissions to do portraits of many of the increasingly well-to-do Mennonites in the community. Rembrandt also purchased a home in 1639 that was next door to Uylenburgh’s.

There is good evidence from many sources that Rembrandt felt a strong kinship with Saskia’s faith but apparently never became an active church goer or a church member himself, as evidenced by his taking as his mistress the nanny who took care of his sons after his wife’s death. In 1649 he replaced his first mistress with a younger woman, not a Mennonite either, and whom he also did not marry, partly because according to the terms of the will doing so would have meant losing his life interest in the inheritance left to him by his wife.

What is clear from Edmond’s research is that over time Rembrandt developed a special interest in Biblical subjects as well as in themes of special importance to Anabaptists, like the Lord's Supper, the rite of feet washing and believers baptism.

Here's the link to Edmonds' well researched paper: http://www.bwa-baptist-heritage.org/Ede-Rembrandt.pdf

Some Wise Words From Pope Francis

Pope Francis I

I've never been a fan of the idea of a papacy, but I find a lot to like about Pope Francis I. Here is a statement in his October 17 homily that I especially resonate with in this election season:

“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology. And ideology does not beckon. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign, rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge...

Jesus told us: “You burden the shoulders of people [with] many things; only one is necessary.” (Ideology), therefore, is the spiritual and mental thought process of one who wants to keep the key in his pocket and the door closed... Ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances the people... it is a serious illness... but it is not new, eh? Already the Apostle John, in his first Letter, spoke of this. Christians who lose the faith and prefer the ideologies. His attitude is: Be rigid, moralistic, ethical, but without kindness.... But why is it that a Christian can become like this? Just one thing: this Christian does not pray. And if there is no prayer, you always close the door.”