The last time I stood in a church and participated in communion was March 4, 2007. I have not stepped into a sanctuary or had the Eucharist since then. I did not go to church on Easter. Not at Pentecost. When I had my annual physical recently, my doctor was astonished that I have forsworn the gathering of the saints. She was very concerned about that.

The friend I spoke of in my previous post has dealt with her issues of trust in another fashion. Her family attends a local mega-church. As she put it, “Why do you think we go to a church of 11,000 people?” And I responded, “That’s why we don’t go to church at all.”

Yesterday, however, I gathered with friends at the home of TexasBlueBelle and BlueMan. There were friends of their children present as well. The house overflowed with teenagers, adults, and children of all ages. The neighbors who have stood by them were there too. The couple from the neighborhood who have remained steadfast have lived there for seven years. They are not Jesus following people or people of any particular book. At one time or another it seems that they were indoctrinated in the ways of church, but that was long ago and far away.

We had lunch and heard the tales in the first person from all four of them for a little while. Things are much worse than I thought. When we all drove in there were people outside watching us arrive. There were people watching the house every time we stepped outside. It was eerie. It was weird. I wondered what they thought we would do or they would see. I waved and smiled as I left. There are six Peace Orders on the court docket scheduled to be heard on Friday, October 5.

After lunch we gathered in the livingroom for a communion service that I’d put together that included some prayers … the Lorica of St. Patrick, a Caim Prayer and we had open prayer for my friends and their neighbors. Then we all took communion together.

“Church” happened all afternoon. Love was present in the room. In the house. In the yard. Love and hope and joy and wonder filled the air as we gathered together to support our friends and celebrate communion together. We prayed for shielding from hate and persecution. We prayed for redemption and reconciliation. We prayed for peace.

I wish I had words for the beauty of what happened in that livingroom. I know that a lot of people cried, but I didn’t. I don’t always cry when things move me, but I will always treasure that afternoon. The prayers of the people and the children were simply beautiful. They were simple. And beautiful. And filled with hope. It was food and drink for the soul in ways that have no words.

The bread of heaven and the cup of salvation … world without end.

One of the most powerful prescriptions for loving each other comes at the words of Jesus just before he went to the cross. It is recorded in the gospel of John, chapter 15:

9“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

It’s a struggle, that.

I’m particularly struggling through this with the LightChildren. They are struggling with a friend and are learning some new relationship tools. So I find myself reflecting on this passage on many levels … the kerfuffle of earlier this week regarding critique, TexasBlueBelle and her man and now my children … not to mention my own processing of issues from our CLB. How do we love people in the midst of strife?

I’m heading out the door to a sewing retreat where I will sew and meditate upon this. So add your thoughts at will and I’ll enjoy reading them when I return.

There’s been some *stuff* goin’ down in the blogosphere this week. A certain combative pastor from the west coast has been critical of some other emerging pastors. It’s been reported and discussed over in Graceland. Many are winking at the whole affair. The swords were rattling and got loud in the ears of a good brother from the northland.

All the discussion got me thinking about how us humans handle criticism and critique. Cause, you know, nobody really likes it. It’s no fun. If we’re honest, none of us like to hear it. Even under the best of circumstances. But (as you may have noticed if you’ve been around here much lately) I’ve been doing some painting. It’s given me a chance to meditate on this quite a bit. Two things came to mind as I thought about criticism and critique in the church at large … 1 Corinthians 13 and my sainted grandmother.

Now stop thinking of 1 Corinthians 13 as a wedding scripture and just read it … read it and think about what it says to us about how to treat each other. Not how to treat a lover, but your brothers and sisters.

Love

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I thought about this in terms of my grandmother, my Grammy O. My Grammy O was one of my very favorite people ever. There probably was no one more different from me in my family than my Grammy O. But she and I were also quite close. Now she was brought up in a very proper British home and felt that good manners ought to be followed just because. I was a child that needed a good reason for everything. I believe that I tried everyone’s patience. Church was an important part of my grandparent’s life because it was a social expectation. I believe they had a faith, but it was also part of their social routine and moral code to participate in church and the structures that it built in their lives. My mother (their daughter) rejected the church and many of the pointless social rules that went with it as she and my father raised their family (my brothers and I).

When I was growing up we *cussed* frequently and with some abandon in my family. We used God and Jesus’ name in vain often. There wasn’t any point in keeping them holy because no one in my immediate family believed in God. The summer that I was 10 I went to spend an extended period of time with my grandparents and my mother spoke to me before I left about my grandparents and their beliefs. She reminded me to keep my cussing down and to use other words if I needed them. Words such as “jeesum crow” and “gosh darn it.” I worked very hard at monitoring my language with my grandparents. But quite early on in the visit I was reading in bed one evening and my Grammy came up to kiss me goodnight. She sat on the edge of the bed and spoke earnestly with me about how she knew how hard I was working to make her and Grampy happy. And she knew it was difficult. But it was also disturbing to them that I used these new words too, because, well, they knew what those words STOOD for! At ten I was mystified. What on earth was I supposed to do?

But here’s the thing. I still remember that scene 36 years later as clear as a bell. I’ve heard countless discussions on why people need to keep their speech pure. Why what comes out of a person’s mouth makes them look good or bad. Blah blah blah. But what sticks with me and makes me think year in and year out … is my grandmother’s loving countenance, speaking to me gently with love. It was her loving criticism and critique that continues to this day to make me think about how I want to present myself to the world. It doesn’t always change what I say or how I say it, but it continues to make me think.

Now I italicized some bits and pieces of 1 Corinthians 13 above because they stand out to me and bits and pieces that are pertinent to how a person might be in relationship with another person in order to critique and criticize someone else. But I wonder if perhaps the time for criticizing and critiquing others is when we are in community with them. From this point on … that includes me.

To end with a prayer by an Irish bard of this era:

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I’m waiting for the dawn

Take this mouth
So quick to criticise
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss

I almost never do this.  In fact, I can’t think of a single time that I have done this.  But I’m doing it now.

I’m going to ask all of you, my blogger friends, to pray.  Please pray and pray hard (whatever that means), in whatever faith you know, for some friends of mine.

I cannot give you many details.  But here is what I can tell you.

This involves my friend TexasBlueBelle and her husband, BlueMan.  Many years ago, in land not so far from here but in another life, BlueMan made some mistakes.  He made a bad choice.  In his own words, “God got a hold of him not long after, and he repented of that mistake.”  He turned himself in to the authorities.  He even spent some time in prison.  He spent a longer time on parole.  He spent even more time in counseling to ensure that he would never make that mistake again.

Now I did not know TexasBlueBelle or BlueMan when he made the bad choice.  I met them afterwards, when he was on parole.  I know that he will never make the bad choice again.  I know that for many, many reasons which I cannot go into here.  But suffice it to say that I know and trust both of them with my life.

His parole ended a few years ago and now he is free to move about the country.  So things being what they are, TexasBlueBelle, BlueMan and their children picked up and moved about a month ago.  Not too far from here, but to another state.  They moved to the house of their dreams.  Heck … it’s the house of my dreams.  It’s a beautiful little house, with a gorgeous backyard … and a jacuzzi tub.  They have wonderful neighbors, one on each side.

It’s the rest of the neighbors in the cul de sac who I must ask you pray for.  They are making life exceedingly miserable for my friends and their family and now even their neighbors.  They have found out about BlueMan’s bad choice.  They have made ugly assumptions about him based on his past.  They are posting “No Trespassing” signs in their yards.  They are attempting to swear out restraining orders against him when he’s never said a word to them (they will find out when they get to the courthouse that he actually has to do something to get a restraining order … but that is beside the point).  The  powers and principalities have overtaken the cul de sac that my friends live on.  Please pray for my friends.  Pray that they will be able to live in peace there in the house of their dreams, with the gorgeous backyard … and jacuzzi tub.  That they will be able to raise their children there and live a quiet life of peace.

A group of us are gathering in their home on Sunday afternoon to pray as well at 2 p.m. eastern time.  If you feel lead to join your heart with us at that time, we’d appreciate it.

In the movie, the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy has quite a bit to overcome. She is dropped into a strange land, with even stranger occupants and given a truly weird mission. She must find her way, alone at first and then with a couple of really oddball traveling companions: The Scarecrow and the Tin Man. As darkness begins to fall, the forest through which they are walking begins to loom more and more frightening:

They enter a thick forest which immediately spooks and frightens Dorothy: “I don’t like this forest. It’s dark and creepy…Do you suppose we’ll meet any wild animals?” Worried that they will be attacked, the Tin Woodsman predicts the dark forest will be filled mostly with “lions and tigers and bears.”

Dorothy: Lions?
Scarecrow: And tigers?
Tin Man: And bears!
Dorothy: Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

As they march along the twisting road, fearfully repeating the phrase and rapidly gaining speed, a ferocious-looking Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) with a matted mane and two tiny ears bounds into their path with a strange roar: “Rrowrrrr!” Both the Tin Man and the Scarecrow back away and are cowering on the ground. Then, the lion stands on two feet and challenges them with his two paws, bravado and elongated words:

Lion: Put ’em up, put ’em uuuuuup! Which one of you first? I’ll fight ya both together if you want. I’ll fight ya with one paw tied behind my back. I’ll fight ya standin’ on one foot. I’ll fight ya with my eyes closed. (To the Tin Woodsman) Oh, pulling an axe on me, hey? (To the Scarecrow) Sneakin’ up on me, hey? Why, gnong-gnong!
Tin Man: Here, here. Go away and let us alone!
Lion: Oh, scared, huh? Afraid, huh? (To the Tin Woodsman) How long can you stay fresh in that can? Ha-ha-ha-ha. Come on, get up and fight, ya shivering junkyard. (To the Scarecrow) Put your hands up, ya lopsided bag of hay.
Scarecrow: Now that’s getting personal, Lion!
Tin Man: Yes, get up and teach him a lesson.
Scarecrow: What’s wrong with you teachin’ him?
Tin Man: W-w-w-ell, I hardly know ‘im.

From filmsite.org review by Tim Dirks

It’s a familiar scene to those of us who have seen the movie many times. In actuality, because the movie is a classic the scene has been translated into many other movies across the years and we have seen it again and again with different characters and different backdrops, but a similar lead-in and outcome.

It was a dark and scary night. The hero or heroine could not get their mind off of what was scaring them. So they kept repeating the scary thing over and over to themselves. This makes the scary thing bigger and bigger and bigger. Until what might have been conquered has now become a monster of mythic proportions. There is no getting past this hulking beast.

So what does that have to do with pagans and heathens? Quite a bit I think.

You see, I have this theory. My theory goes like this. People are people. We’re all pretty much alike. We have similar dreams for our lives and our loved ones and our children. We have similar struggles. We overcome similar hurdles.

I first encountered this theory when I was quite young. I read a biography of the Federal Era portrait painter, Gilbert Stuart. He is best known for painting George Washington. I don’t remember very much about the the book except for this. He was once staying in a hotel with an older man. He was nervous about something that was coming up. The older man gave him the advice that he could allay some of his fears by remembering that, “all men put their pants on one leg at at time.” Along with Gilbert, it took me awhile to puzzle that one out. But it has served me well all my life.

All men (and women) put their pants on one leg at a time. We all eat breakfast. We all, at our core, are more similar than we are different. Parents want their children to grow up healthy and happy, fall in love and do well in their chosen field. No parent dreams of their child growing up to become homeless or unhappy when they first hold that tiny baby in their arms. We all want good things for our children, for our schools, our communities, our country.

Yet what I have seen happening in our churches is like the scene from the Wizard of Oz. As we have progressed from modernism to post-modernism in the past 50 years, the church has responded in fear; chanting the things it fears over and over and over again. The people who go to the churches have thus created monsters out of their neighbors. The very people who they are to love as themselves, they grow to fear and hate because the chant every Sunday is …

Heathens …

Pagans …

Witches …

oh my!

Keep your children safe. Bring them here. Do not associate with those evil doers.

But Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves. But if we have locked ourselves away in our churches and made our neighbors into monsters, how can we do that? How can we begin to understand who they are? The things they love, what makes them tick if we don’t begin to know them.

They are NOT heathens and pagans and witches, oh my! They are people … they put their pants on one leg at a time.

***********************************************

Here are the most excellent thoughts of the rest of the Syncrobloggers this month:

Matthew Stone at Journeys in Between
Christianity, Paganism, and Literature at Notes from the Underground
John Smulo at JohnSmulo.com
Sam Norton at Elizaphanian
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith
Chasing the Wild Goose at Eternal Echoes
Visigoths Ahoy! at Mike’s Musings
Belief and Being: The difficulty of communicating faith at Phil Wyman’s Square No More
Steve Hollinghurst at On Earth as in Heaven
Undefined Desire at Igneous Quill
A Walk on the Wild Side at Out of the Cocoon
Observations on Magic in Western Religion at My Contemplations
Tim Abbott at Tim Abbott
Spirituality and the Zodiac: Stories in the Cosmos at Be the Revolution
Rejection, Redemption, and Roots at One Hand Clapping

You know a wall is seriously thirsty when the first coat of Kilz (supposedly one coat coverage) is not white, but a paler shade of beige when you’re done. It’s covering my fingers better than it’s covering the walls.

This is going to take a while.

That 2 to 1 estimate on time is going to be more like 1 to 1. It took about 5 hours to cut in and put one coat of primer on the walls today. It will need two coats of primer. This is before I put down any color. Then I will need to do trim. And we do have that built in bookshelf.

I spent some time reflecting on the journey I’ve taken with painting in my life. I remember the first time I ever painted a room. I was about 17, maybe 18. I was a senior in highschool. One of my two best friends wanted help painting his bedroom. So he and I and another friend got together one Saturday and painted his bedroom. I don’t remember what color we painted it. I just remember that we did. I also seem to remember that we laughed an awful lot. And that perhaps we did not do a very good job. But we had a lot of fun. I also remember that I found speckles of paint on my contact lenses that evening. I’ve gotten together with other friends over the years to help them paint various rooms in their houses. Kitchens, bedrooms, livingrooms. In my world, painting is a community event. It’s sort of the barn raising of the 21st century. You make a party out of it and have fun.

When we first found our CLB they were involved in service worship for three months. They had taken three months to do service and see what God had in store for them. So we decided to walk along side them for that and see what happened. Much of what we did involved painting. We painted a community room. We painted bathrooms at the homeless shelter. We did a lot of cleaning too. But I remember the painting most of all.

Now I’m painting alone. Significantly, I’m painting my livingroom. It’s the room where many communal events from my CLB took place and where the most abusive act of all took place. The meeting in January where I was emotionally abused by my dearest friends happened in my livingroom. They all got to go home. I had to live in the place where I was abused. I thought about that today as I covered the walls with clean white paint.

I’m making the room new. I’m doing it alone. Something new is growing now. When I’m done, the room will be new. It won’t look the same. I think I will even change the furniture. I’m exorcising the ghosts who have walked the halls of my house for all these months.

New things will happen in my new livingroom. New community will happen there. God will come again to visit. He is giving me new dreams to dream. I think I might be able to look forward to that.

I know I’ve been quiet lately.

I’ve been wrestling with some things.

Visiting doctors about my physical innards.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of a day when a miracle occurred in my livingroom. Five people came together and made an organic community. Five people laid aside personal egos and were able to hear each other with grace and love. The Holy Spirit moved amongst us and created a miracle.

It’s gone now. Destroyed by the agony and fear of petty humans. I’m grieving that.

Yesterday was a long hard day. The weather turned and so did my mood. My mother’s cousin died after a short harsh battle with cancer. I couldn’t find my mother to tell her. She was in Maine. I spent time reflecting on my faith journey and it did me in. There was no one to tell to about my mother’s cousin, to ask for prayer for her family. For her children and grandchildren. I was and am alone.

Back in 1989 or 1990 when we first did the whatever-you-want-to-call-it … joined the church? became believers? became born again? Whatever you are comfortable calling it … that. I was glad to be part of the community. Community is important to me. As I’ve studied over the years since then, I’ve come to believe that it’s important to God that we live and reveal Him in community.

We thrived for a long while in our first church and it was good to us for a long time. There were many different strands of why it went bad. But when we left that church in late 2003, we left with a small group which had been meeting together for a number of years. It was hard and heartwrenching for us (LightHusband and I) in particular because at one time we had been very close to the pastor and his wife. But we had our small community which we kept meeting with.

In early 2004, we found a new small innovative church that was doing all the right things. It was focusing on helping the poor. If those impoverished folks wanted to worship with us, so much the better. They and then we, were doing some new and innovative things with worship. We focused on experiential worship. We focused on including the congregation in discussions rather than having people listen to lectures.

LightHusband joined the team that lead the church later that year. I joined the team that helped create the worship services. I was able (finally) to use my teaching gifts and talents across the spectrum. We did so many wonderful, unique things there is scarcely room to list them all. One of the guys on the team put together a worship element on the tower of Babel that still gives me chills when I listen to it 2 years later. It is one of my favorite meditative pieces ever. I wrote a one woman play based on the book of Ruth and acted it out one Sunday, later I did one based on Esther. We did collective services in which everyone in the church participated to bring something to the service. Or we had worship stations where people learned, experienced and worshipped together in small (4-6 people) groups together. We spent the year 2006 – 2007 observing the Jewish holidays in order to more thoroughly understand the roots of our Christian faith.

In 2005 a whole group of us went to Soularize out in Venice Beach. We had a blast and learned so much. We walked the streets of Venice and found things to use to put together a Eucharist station for communion.

We told each other it was okay to ask questions, to grieve our old churches, to be angry … yet it wasn’t okay to stay there. We set out to redeem the bad and ugly things we’d found in the old way of life; or at least attempt it.

So, why am I telling you all of this?

Because, when we left our first church behind. We left it. We were done and it was gone. But this time is ever so much more difficult. This most recent church was made of the emerging cloth. Most of you know some of the people who participated my spiritual abuse. They comment on your blogs. They are your FaceBook friends. They go to Emergent gatherings. This spiritual abuse isn’t limited to the old institutional church. It can happen anywhere. Anywhere at all.

When I first found Emerging Grace some two years ago, I read her Spiritual Abuse series. I thought it was interesting, but it didn’t resonate with what had happened to me at our first church. I found it sad. I knew it could happen. I knew it had happened to some friends of mine in other places. But it wasn’t my story at the time. It is now. When I read it again yesterday, it was as if Grace had been in my livingroom during a particular meeting that happened this past January. The fact that she wasn’t and didn’t even know that meeting took place. In fact, that she wrote this post 2 years prior to the meeting speaks sadly to the commonality of these events and how devastating they have become to the Church. Here are the salient points from part 2 but click through and read the whole thing. It all happened to me … really … it did.

When spiritual abuse occurs, it is because circumstances require that the leader take you down in order to secure or advance his position. These circumstances could be jealousy, differences of opinion, political or budget considerations threatening his position, or needing a scapegoat for problems within the ministry.

“When a lust for power in the heart of a leader is combined with pride, an insecurity that needs to control, and a constituency that is willing to follow blindly, the conditions are present for spiritual abuse.”

……

Manipulators and controllers will not accept differences of opinion. One of the ways they exercise control is to question the loyalty of those who disagree with them and discipline those who contradict them, branding them as rebellious (or as -in my case- attempting to split the church because I was asking questions).

Then, I thought, well … maybe I need to look beyond this and think about de-toxing. So I went to RobbyMac’s site to read his series on De-toxing from the Church. He’s written an excellent series. I don’t want to detract from that at all. But I’ve already lived it once. What do I do now that I’ve been there done that? Where do I go if I’ve been this harmed within the emerging church? This, from Detoxing Discoveries, in particular struck me …

• Which, being interpreted, means (A) we shouldn’t act so self-righteous or adopt a detoxing-martyr complex if other Christians aren’t rushing to hear us vent (yet again) about church, and (B) we need to find others who understand where we can safely vent, puke, cry, and hash through the issues (for me, that meant starting up the Dead Pastors’ Society at the King’s Head Pub every Monday night)

1. Dead Pastors Society Rule #1: It’s safe place to vent, and to recount the gory details of what led to the disillusionment and detox.
2. Dead Pastors Society Rule #2: But it isn’t okay to stay bitter or feed bitterness. A safe place to vent was for the purpose of healing.
3. Dead Pastors Society Rule #3: It’s a process. Not a quick fix. Sometimes, we met and all we “accomplished” was the quaffing of Guinness and the watching of hockey. And that was (and is) okay.

So … to whom do I turn? Where do I go, when it’s not the institutional church, but an emerging church which has created the monster? Where is the support group for that? Then what?

I am scattered today.  My mind is skittering around and trying to process several things all at once.

One of the things that I’ve been sorting through and want to do some more reading about (if I can find it) is a theory I’m beginning to nourish about the differences between the Celtic Church and the Roman church during the 500s and 600s and just why was Pelagius declared a heretic?  I wonder if it had a lot more to do with who he represented than what he thought.  But I’m still thinking and reading and need to organize my thoughts before I can do any serious writing about it.

We had dinner with some friends up here last night.  It was funny (weird), but I’ve known about these people all my life.  Just now we’re becoming friends.  Another person dropped in towards the end of the evening.  I’ve also known of him my whole life.  But not known him.  They all knew and hung out with each other all summer every summer.  Their families summered here.  I just came to visit my aunt for a few days here and there each summer.  Sometimes I’d spend a week.  We had a conversation last night about the gangs they ran with.  To them those gangs had been all inclusive.  To me, I could never find an opening.  LateComer declared “Oh, if we’d known you were here, you’d have been part of us.”  None of them remember me; they remember my youngest brother.  But I remember them.  Which leaves me wondering … am I really that withdrawn?

I remember the first time I took the MBTI and got the Introverted result.  I thought it was wrong.  But now I as I look back over my life and remember all the times I’ve tried so hard to be outgoing and failed.  Or gotten it wrong.  I remember being shoved out, off the porch to “go find the kids, they’re all over the place.”  But I just could not do that.  I wouldn’t know what to say when I got there.

So I’m trying to put all that together.  It felt like a sucker punch.  It wasn’t meant that way.  LateComer was trying to make me feel belatedly included.  But … the reality hit hard.

I’m continuing to recuperate, but not as quickly as I’d like.  So thoughts like this … “What if I have pancreatic cancer?” keep springing into my head.  I have to say them out loud so that LightHusband can help me push them away with the reality of this takes a long time to recuperate from.  But I have a strong imagination, it likes to win.

My cousin and her children came to visit yesterday.  It was fun, but too short.  Next year, we’ll gather here again for a longer day.  I will feel better and be able to do more.

The next big battle to fight with LightGirl is getting her into some decent clothes for Thanksgiving dinner in November.  I’ve got 84 days.  We’ve invited LightHusband’s parents, siblings and their families for the holiday.  So far it looks as though everyone will come and they’re all excited about it.  My 11 year old niece exclaimed, “I’ll go if I have to drive myself!”  And it’s an 11 hour drive for her … But this side of the family dresses for holiday dinners.  So.  LightGirl will need something appropriate.  Not made of tissue paper.  Not looking like a ‘ho from the ‘hood.  In other words, nothing from any of the local or on-line shops for girls her age.  I will have to make it.  Not a big deal for me.  But it will take some … (how shall I say this?) … negotiating.  So … let the games begin.

(ht to Jamie Arpin-Ricci)

Today marks the day two years ago that the levees failed.

We all continue to fail the least of those whose lives were swept away in the flood.

Life has marched on day after weary day. The press and our media hungry eyes have moved on … away from the flood zone so we no longer know about the gut wrenching poverty and hardship being lived out by thousands. But it is.

So today. Do one thing to help. Just one.

Here is a list of resources to get you started.

Check out When the Saints Go Marching In … sign the petition for Gulf Recovery Bill of 2007.

After the Headlines Fade … what we’re doing today.

Plenty International is village-based international development agency. Plenty has been sending relief supplies and volunteers to the Gulf Coast region since 2005 and will focus on rebuilding homes in 2007.

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights is a strategy and action center working for justice, opportunity and peace in urban America.

Moving Forward Gulf Coast is a community organization led by natives of the Gulf Coast region who have personally identified families who want to rebuild their lives in the Gulf Coast, but cannot because of lack of funds or information.

Oxfam America is a non-profit organization that works to end global poverty through saving lives, strengthening communities, and campaigning for change. Hurricane Katrina spurred Oxfam America to launch its first relief in the United States.

National Alliance to Restore Opportunity to the Gulf Coast & Displaced Persons is an inclusive national coalition of faith-based and social justice non-profit organizations.

Methodist Federation for Social Action unites activists within the United Methodist Church to take action on issues of justice, peace and liberation in the church, nation and world.

Mississippi ACLU is the foremost defender of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The ACLU has played a major role in nearly every critical civil liberties battle of the last century — in courtrooms, in Congress and in the public arena.

Institute on Race and Poverty investigates the ways that policies and practices disproportionately affect people of color and the disadvantaged.

Think New Orleans. Alan Guiterrez blogs about the progressive happenings including the rebuilding of infrastructure, policy happenings, and events in New Orleans.

Volunteer Match – Yahoo matches volunteers with projects and programs. Interesting facts and figures in the sidebar.

Emergency Communities – non-profit organization that employs compassion and creativity to provide community-based disaster relief. Check out their needs list for in-kind donations, or make a financial contribution. Tell a friend, spread the word, and get involved!

Mercy Corps is currently working along the Gulf Coast to help children and families recover from the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. After an immediate response, the agency is now focusing on rebuilding the region.

Boxes for Katrina Relief Aid – If you’re looking for a way to tangibly get involved in Katrina Relief Aid work, it can all start with a simple box.