Our bear loves sunflower seeds. Around our bird feeders she dances like a 100-pound goldfinch. She has smashed beyond use several of our hospitality locations for God’s birds. Dick Rustay has spent hours designing, rebuilding and praying for a “No Bears Allowed” bird feeder. So have I. There’s no way we can keep the bear from eating birdseed. (Might makes right).

Late one afternoon as the western sky, goldenrod toward blush, crawled behind the mountains toward the Lakota lands, I sat in the living room reading the important newspaper from Viva House, the Baltimore Catholic Worker House. I had just read our standard confession: “The only solution is love, and love comes with community.”  

Suddenly, out of the fading sky, a boom-crash streaked through the old farmhouse. I jumped, my lap disappearing, running to the side porch to see what I had heard. There, bent over, was our bear munching the sunflower seeds. My heart beat tight. I stood at the screen door and watched.

Billy Bob raced from the far side of the house, barking. The bear arose, hissed, and with stentorian blast blew Billy Bob away. Our sweet old dog, tail tucked between his legs, cried and cowered to the far side. He did not return until hours after my friend had departed.

I stood for 30 minutes and watched as the bear crunched the seeds in grinding teeth, occasionally hammering my Murphy-gifted bird feeder to paw at more supper. Braving with clock-clicks I opened the screen door and moved outside, my flashlight burning away the appearing dark as black sky overhead began to twinkle. She raised her head, sniffed the air fox-like, moved away and returned to the repast. My she, coming round the mountain, headlights leading, car clacking on gravel, drove. Bear bone fear, our she clambered up creekside into the woods: black light night. I have not seen her since our shared meal.

                                *   *   *

 Old Floyd is a friend of mine. He lives in the shadowy uplands fromEllijay,Georgia, near our beloved Dayspringfarm. Floyd has worked for years at Ellijay Hardware. We have shopped there for 25 years now. Floyd showed me how to configure spigots for my rain barrels and how to let the earthward pull of water in a hose slake the thirst of our “Lauren Cogswell Blueberry Bushes,” all of whom journeyed to us in the back of a car from our sister community Jubilee Partners.

Old Floyd is also a friend of Murphy’s. He has helped Murphy with her seed purchases and taught her about the soil, shade and sun needed for her various flowers, herbs and her scraggly bushes.

We all need a little help from our friends, with the possible exception of the Libertarians. So I went to Old Floyd at the hardware store after my encounter with our bear. He took me to the bird feeders. He demonstrated the “squirrel proof” feeders, in which he did not believe. He told me about concrete footings, higher steel posts and cage-like wire covers to keep paws from pawing. “Maybe,” said he, “this will keep the bears from eating your seeds.” He did not seem to be a believer.

“Floyd, what do you do?”

“Well, I feed them all.”

“What?!?,” I exclaimed, raising the head of the woman mixing paint nearby.

“I feed them all.”

“You mean the squirrels, the bears and the birds, even crows?”

“Yep, I feed them all.”

“Thank you, Floyd.”

I departed the hardware store, but I did not leave. Old Floyd gave me a new vision and insight: new wine in new wineskins, for the old wineskin would burst apart with such a vision.

Back to Dayspring I drove “Little Girl Blue,” our pickup truck. Home again, I sped to the ruined bird feeder. I built a flat board plate and fastened it to the existing post. No bird feeder at all. I put a gracious plenty of sunflower seeds on the plate. I then and now put seeds around the feet and in the arms of our St. Francis statue, who stands 15 feet from the feeder. Sometimes a squirrel and sometimes a cardinal in regal robes sits on St. Francis’ head, chewing or pecking away. I now feed them all.

We have had an open table (feed them all) at the Open Door Community since our founding, which was 2,000 years ago when Jesus called Levi the rich tax collector. We have a Eucharistic theology which links all our Works of Mercy to the Welcome Table.

For instance, a couple of Sunday mornings past,Jason Ebingerand I sat with JP in the visiting room at Central State Prison. We shared vendor food and soft drinks. The unsaid words of institution echoed in our hearts from our worship the Sunday before and the anticipated Eucharist in a few hours. No one who comes through the Open Door is unhouseled, though many are unhoused.

The Holy Spirit in Old Floyd revealed to me the relationship between the Eucharist and squirrels, bears and birds. Feeding God’s creatures at Dayspringfarm is now an extension of our Eucharist and the Works of Mercy. Floyd also taught me about the mercy that is at the center of the heart of our God, whom we know as Creator and Redeemer.

“Yep, I feed them all.”

We believe and practice “The only solution is love, and love comes with community.” And love feeds them all.

Thank you, Old Floyd.

This reflection was also inspired by the article “Freedom” in the November-December Hospitality, by Anonymous, and I thank its author.  W

Eduard Loring is a Partner at the Open Door Community.

Hello, I am TroyDavis.

You killed me on September 21, 2011. You wanted to kill me at 7 p.m., but it was 11:08 before your Georgia venom took me down. Now I walk your streets with the poor and homeless and haunt your gated “communities” while you drink too much wine and gorge yourselves on dead meat. I am the resurrection and the way.

I am alive in every Occupy Movement from Atlanta to Yemen. We are coming to you. We are now moving toward you. Your little needles, poisoned tipped, ain’t gonna work for you much longer. Your houses will be turned into houses of hospitality and gladness, and joy shall fill your now empty rooms. We will have peace and solidarity, shalom and equality. But beware: The gospel is as bad news for non-repentant killers as it is hard news for faithful practitioners.

Come out, come out, my people.

 I. The Ancestors of State Killing

Charles A.L. Lamar was a 1 percenter, serving King Cotton to amass his wealth. His heart grew rotten selling cotton down near the swamps and rice lands around Savannah. He was one of too many who wanted his way to make money with plenty of honey that oozed from the brows of slaves.

We must destroy the Union so we can buy and sell those African bodies and their labor. We need them for slavery. Slaves are the base of our Southern civilization, our way of life. If a plantation system, like a political empire and capitalist markets, does not grow and expand, it dies. It must not die.

 Lamar will kill and die to have things his way. He will defy the law and send his death ship, the Wanderer, from Savannah to Africa to bring back human beings to sell into slavery.

 But Lamar ultimately did not get his way, thanks be to the God of Abraham Lincoln. Lamar crumpled to the earth leading an assault on Union soldiers, whose victory became the basis of the 13th Amendment, adopted December 6, 1865: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” (Emphasis added.)

Still, we must listen to the rivers of woe.

620,000 dead soldiers and millions more from the auction block.

 II. The Wanderer

By 1857, those who wanted to destroy the Union and build a Southern slave nation — the “secessionists” — realized that reopening the slave trade with Africa would rend our common fabric. Thus arose a double strategy. First, to purchase more slaves would expand slavery westward in the United States and southward into Cuba and Nicaragua. Second, to defy the federal law against the international slave trade would encourage the white masses to boldness and rejection of the Union. Fire-eaters and poor whites would kill our nation and citizens in order to own slaves, to pursue the international slave trade, and to conquer new lands under Southern sovereignty.

620,000 dead soldiers and millions more from the auction block.

This is the sordid tale of the last American ship to sail in the U.S. slave trade, from Savannah to the mouth of the Congo River and back. The international slave trade had been outlawed by the U.S. Congress in 1807, taking effect on January 1, 1808. In 1857, the Wanderer set out in brazen disregard for the law of the land.

Like our 21st-century drones, the Wanderer was a bitter fruit of human imagination and technological know-how. Built in 1856, she was a luxurious yacht with all the finery for sumptuous meals and lavish entertainment. A toy for the rich white elite, she became a death machine for Africans. Sold and transmogrified from heaven to hell, she became a slaver. Outfitted for human cargo, the Wanderer sailed into bondage and death.

The shared space for the captives had no toilets, and they resembled torture boxes, 12 inches wide, 18 inches high and six feet long.

On a gurney about the same size, Troy Davis was chained down and murdered, not by salt water filling his lungs but by toxins filling his blood.

This size offered less space than most slave ships, but the reduction is not surprising. Charles Lamar and his fellow slave dealers’ inner demons studied ways to minimize costs and maximize profits. Their bottom line was making money — cutting costs in buying and raising prices in selling — through the most awful of human corruption, the selling of human bodies.

The Wanderer arrived at the mouth of the Congo River in the autumn of 1858. Slave hunters and purchasers, along with security guards, picked up Africans as young as 13 years old. In the former place of lavish entertainment, the luxury yacht turned slave ship became the scene of a battle to survive  Of the 409 slaves bought and chained, 80 died crossing the violent sea, murdered by the slave powers just like Troy Davis on September 21, 2011.

Was an ancestor of Troy Davis aboard that ship? It feels like it. Troy Davis and Charles Lamar were both from Savannah.

Charles Lamar was arrested and charged with slave trading. He awaited Georgia justice in a state where his father-in-law was the local federal district judge.

Lamar walked away freely to the battlefield. He now wanted to kill Yankees, so off to war he marched with his own cadre of Confederates. He gave what he took, a life for lives. On April 16, 1865, near Columbus, Georgia, a week after Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar sank earthward, dead.

More than 120 years later, in Savannah, Troy Davis was arrested and charged with murdering a white police officer. He awaited Georgia justice. On September 21, 2011, inJackson, Georgia, mere weeks before his 42nd birthday, Troy Anthony Davis sank into the execution gurney, dead.

 III. The Emancipator

On March 4, 1865, Inauguration Day, Pennsylvania Avenue was “a sea of mud,” with water splashing everyone who gathered to hear the president’s immortal interpretation of the meaning of the Civil War and of American slavery. As John Wilkes Booth hovered hatefully in the crowd,Lincolnspoke:

 Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came….

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully.

The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” (Emphasis added.)

 If the family of the victim murdered allegedly at the hands of Troy Davis had heard the voice of God’s offer of reconciliation through Abraham Lincoln’s words, perhaps they would not have screamed and pleaded for this man’s murder.

Who does speak and act for the pro-death penalty lobby? Are they deformed children of the pro-slavery argument? Is there one God with many contradictory voices, or are there many Gods who contradict one another? In whom do we trust? A god who kills? Or a God who gives life, mercy and justice? A God of the slaves way down in Egyptland? Or the god of the slaveholders?

 IV. The Survivors

What if Charles Lamar and his minions do not receive the death penalty?

The New York Times editorialized a threat and a promise that came true in 1865: “The entire population of the North will wage upon [the South] a relentless war of extermination.”

620,000 dead soldiers and millions more from the auction block.

Oh, say, can you hear, the hoofbeats of John Brown’s horses rattling into Harpers Ferry at midnight on the cloudy, misty night of October 16, 1859? Can you feel the song of Langston Hughes to all the Blacks of theUSA?

 SinceHarpers Ferry

Is alive with ghosts today,

Immortal raiders

Come again to town —

Perhaps,

You will recall

John Brown.

 — From “October 16” by Langston Hughes

 What has changed since Charles Lamar and his cronies designed a slave ship that minimized space and humanity to maximize profits? American corporations, prisons and state governments today are squeezing human beings into poverty that maximizes profits and cuts costs. Have you heard of the suicides among Chinese workers employed by American corporations to make our toys? These wage slaves are squeezed by time, space and meaningless work, another device in the tool box of death for the oppressed.

Of course many of you, dear readers, got a bucket of cold water thrown into your faces as you awakened to the modern South when, through passion and scapegoat lust, the body of Troy Davis was finally stilled, like John Brown’s at the end of the gallows rope or Baptist John’s head brought in on a platter to flatter the thin one dancing.

Today the spirit of slavery and murder continues in nearby Columbus at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly the School of the Americas, where torture and the fine art of slaughter are taught to our helpers — death squads — who will kill to keep markets stable.

Spoke Lincoln at Gettysburg:

 It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (Emphasis added.)

Epilogue

Hello, I am TroyDavis.

I live in your work to abolish the death penalty. I live in you. You, the living legacy of the Abolitionist movement, must reach into the present, despite how you got here through the spirit of domination and slavery.

How can we redeem the past? That is the question. Let us sit together at the Welcome Table of life and love. Sit with us, Charles Lamar, with the children of the Wanderer who died on the way toSavannah.

Let us sit together and the death penalty will sink earthward, dead.  W

Eduard Loring is a Partner at the Open Door Community. “The War Over Slavery” is a series of occasional columns.

Thank you for your wonderful, loving note. Wednesday was a great evening with you, too – thank you for being my teacher and showing me by example. I especially loved watching you make showers possible for people who really needed them, and facilitating the letters to Troy Davis. One of the most meaningful moments for me that night was helping Charles get a pair of shoes from the shoe closet – watching him take such care and pride in cleaning them and making them smell fresh, and then David helping him get some new white shoelaces to replace the raggedy red ones. I recall thinking that there was nothing more important in the world at that moment than Charles having good shoes that he could be proud to wear.

I received a birthday card from Troy Davis, which Marcus facilitated. I cried a bucket of tears when I saw it. That Troy would take time to send me a loving message in the midst of what he is facing – well, it’s not surprising, given his generous heart, but nonetheless I have no words for what it truly means to me.

Heartfelt thanks to you and Murphy for changing your plans to be here for Troy. I’m sorry that you will miss the retreat – bless you for being present where you are most needed. I loved your suggestions to Jason, and your response to Kathryn Hamoudah, and I’m available to help plan and carry out the vigil at the Parole Board on September 19. I will take as much time off work as possible on the Friday of the march and the Monday of the Parole Board vigil. And I will do whatever I can to facilitate hospitality to the activists through Open Door. I will speak with Jason today and keep you posted.

Did you hear what Rick Perry said about Texas executions in the Republican debate this week? He was asked about how he felt presiding over 234 executions (yes, that’s 234 – staggering!), including several innocent people, since he became governor, and not only did he get the biggest applause of the night at that moment, he was horribly smug and prideful about his state carrying out the “ultimate justice.” I am frightened for this country.

Yes, Jason is an incredible human being, a true gift from God. And he’s so young – I marvel at the fact that he will only grow more incredible as he gets older. He gives me hope for this world. You would have been so proud of him at the meeting last night, taking a leadership role, networking with everyone, speaking confidently about Open Door’s commitment to the movement and specific plans for Troy.

Please pray for Ed Weir. Last night at the meeting he got so emotional during the introductions that he could not speak. Lora said they had talked to Troy’s sisters that day, and that they have known their family for over 20 years – that this is very hard for them. My heart was breaking for Ed, for everyone who loves Troy.

Sorry for the long note – there is much to say.

I hope you are enjoying Tallahassee and Waculla Springs.

Peace and love,

Mary Catherine

or at WABE’s site: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wabe/news.newsmain/article/0/1/1810763/Atlanta./Homeless.Take.Over.Downtown.Hotel.(‘This.Day.in.History’-1990

The Cry of the Poor: Cracking White Male Supremacy—An Incendiary and Militant Proposal

by Eduard Loring
with a foreword by Nibs Stroupe
and an afterword by Melvin E. Jones

The genius of Loring’s book is that it demonstrates the destructive lusts of greed and power that rage like a wildfire burning out of control, destroying everything in their path. Loring is crying for change — from the new world order to a new, inclusive social order with equality and justice for all.” — Marcus Wellons, #314289, Georgia Death Row

You can download and read the book in its entirety by going to the ODC Press Publications Page, or you can submit an order form for a hard copy there.

You can read reviews of the book by Kurt Greenhalgh, a fellow catholic worker from Minnesota, and Tony Flynn, in the LA Catholic Worker’s publication the Catholic Agitator.