On September 11, 2000, I arrived in Jerusalem, eager to begin my program in conflict resolution through music — a program that I had created over years of planning and deliberation. I was in Bethlehem when the fighting started, and I stayed as long as it took for me to figure out that I couldn’t do the good work that I had so long planned. One of my favorite kids, Asel Asleh, was killed in the prime of his life — a tragedy I will never forget. This is a link to a picture I took of Asel at summer camp at Seeds of Peace where I was his camp counselor.

Six months later, on March 11, 2001, my father and I were in a terrible car wreck. We were an inch away from death. My father wouldn’t have made it through if I hadn’t shouted for him to wake up — he was pierced and broken — and he lost almost every drop of his blood on the way to the hospital. Thank God and thanks to his tough-as-steel heart, my father is out biking an hour or two per day on his re-constructed hip — and he walks to take communion in church — and he walked my sister down the aisle the next year.

Another six months later, on September 11, 2001, our country woke up to realize what I had first realized a year earlier: the world is not as safe and kind as we first believed.

And what can we do? I think we can all sing a song for justice, and for love, and for family, and for this wonderful life that we are living. I sing every song for God, and for my dad, and for those who die, and for all of those who are suffering, and for all of those who feel the same joy I feel in music.

I have made two recordings of my own since My two September 11ths and my March 11th. One is called Live in Vermont, and is the record of my years after my accident — sitting on the porch with my best buddy, Micah Schonberg and picking songs — and another is called Stolen Shack, where I am playing music with some of my other best friends — I also recently completed and am in the process of disseminating a new folk/bluegrass worship service called Light into the World, and am excited about the response it is getting.

And I made a recording with my close friend, Jeshua Erickson, an incredible singer/songwriter who I met in Washington. When I was out on the porch, he was in his room — and when I was trying to push all of my fears inside, he was pulling his out.

Jeshua has written songs about his life, and about the political and religious truths in this world like none I have ever seen. Jeshua’s new album which I had the honor of joining him on, Swords into Plowshares, is not perfect, not a multi-million dollar production — but a beautiful yet rough, gritty and real interpretation of the political and social climate today as well as a pretty listen:)

Jeshua has written a story about our recording process and the troubles and trials that ensued — please visit his site at: www.jeshuaerickson.com/blog — and please go to Sojourners Magazine to check out his CD, which is for sale on their site. If you’d like to read the lyrics from the tunes, or to hear soundclips of them, visit www.jeshuaerickson.com

If you haven’t ever tried to sit out on the porch and play in the snow, or in the rain — singing a gospel tune out into the cold air for nobody in particular, try it — it will change you!

Peace.

Check out religiousliberal’s newest entry on the law that is being considered in Ohio combating ‘college liberalism…’

Now, I might understand, though chuckle to myself at the futility if, by liberal, they meant relationships –

Is this country completely backwards?! I am amazed that a state would go so far as to want to silence the people that are educating the educators. We are taking scientific facts such as dinosaurs and natural selection out of our textbooks and replacing them with a sticker on the front cover that says we all deny that we come from monkeys…

And we believe that we are the righteous soldiers, marching to glory, killing terrorists and playing our fife and drum.

Don’t get me wrong — I am a religious person, and I believe deeply in God’s love for all of humankind, and I believe in Christ’s message of solidarity with the poor and afflicted. I believe that religion should shape the way we live our lives — I even believe personally in quite conservative ideals when ‘family values’ are concerned…

But I want to be free to speak my mind as a teacher, and a professor. I want my students to also be free to learn, and to discover. We are muzzling the future leaders of our country and the world.

Check out the Religious Liberal Blog. I have only had him on my bookmark list for a couple of weeks, but his entries never fail to be right on target.

And, please, let’s stand up for Christian thought, and not Christian censorship. God bless and good night.

Here are a couple more articles about the proposed Ohio legislation:

“McCarthyism in Ohio” Daily Kos

Associated Press Article

Sara Dogan, National Campus Director of “Students for Academic Freedom’s” Response to the AP article:

Chuck Currie has a passionate new post about poverty and the George W. Bush administration. Here is an excerpt — but go check it out — it is good to find other souls in this world who find deep meaning in Christ’s love for the poor. We are the only nation that can’t a national voice to speak out against poverty even in our own country, let alone Africa or Asia.

Thank goodness for Bono, and for the present hip trend in Hollywood to follow his and others’ examples, and lend their voices to the less fortunate of the world — those who can’t just run food up on their credit cards.

But, as my father always says, there will be a time — when we hit rock bottom again — when all of our borrowed money comes back to haunt us…

For now, there is speaking out, even in this small media.

Chuck Currie writes about another of Bush’s cronies who has come out against his policies — David Kuo. The article he refers to is on beliefnet.com

Kuo says that he is speaking out now because the “White House can still do a great deal for the poor. It can add another few billion to insure every American child has health care. It could launch a program to simply eliminate hunger…” Don’t hold your breath, Mr. Kuo. This president just doesn’t give a damn.

I guess I’d like to think that this is not true, but I’m afraid I agree. I’ve been amazed in the previous weeks, however, at the way the rest of the world has come together in their agreement to fight poverty in Africa and in the rest of the world. And I was particularly happy to hear that John Edwards had set up a research center at UNC on the subject of poverty.

But what a shame that our president, a devout Christian, lives in such a dream world of evil gay people and terrorist devils that he can’t emerge to see the children of our own country growing up in Wal-mart poverty.

Check out Chuck Currie’s blog — his is one you’ll want to bookmark.

Oh what a beautiful city
Oh what a beautiful city
Oh what a beautiful city
Twelve gates to the city, hallelujah.

Christo’s Gates have come to New York City’s Central Park. It is truly an experience to walk through them, around them, see them flapping in the wind, and see them like a silent line of fire curving through the sketched trees of winter.

We spent the day weaving in and out of awed crowds, looking up, jumping around, smiling, basking in the sunny Sunday afternoon joy of Central Park, and thrilled by the display of color tracing the city’s paths.

There’s three gates in the east
And three gates in the west
There’s three gates in the north
And there’s three gates in the south
And there’s twelve gates to the city, hallelujah.

The old song, “O what a beautiful city” is very fitting today… “Twelve gates to the city, hallelujah…” Well, there are more than 12 gates, but the song speaks to some kind of divine wonder that struck Central Park yesterday in the form of Christo’s gates. What a wonderful thing that we humans can create something so wonderful and beautiful in the middle of God’s creation. The fiery saffron fabric falling from the iron and aluminum gates lit the earth as if this had been an act of nature — an early spring — a burst of light in this dark season.

The Gates by Christo are truly magnificent — this time not simply in concept, but in true, earthy saffron orange fire, weaving through the sketched black branches of the city’s dingy February.

Oh what a beautiful city
Oh what a beautiful city
Oh what a beautiful city
Twelve gates to the city, hallelujah.

Peace.

My mother, Cynthia Blomquist Gustavson, participated in the writing of a wonderful new book called Human Spirit, Holy Spirit…

This book is a resource for churches everywhere — it is a collection of vocational faith, and of God where you least expect.

Read my mother’s description of the book, Human Spirit, Holy Spirit — written by Fellowship Ink in Tulsa, OK: cynthiagustavson.modblog.com

I’m a proud kid!

“When it snows in Jerusalem, there will be peace…”

If you check my webstats, you will find, like I did, that someone typed this phrase into google and found this site. Perhaps like you have, just now.

Could it be that some hopeful soul perhaps typed his/her prayer into google, hoping that God would hear? When it snows in Jerusalem…

I wasn’t in Jerusalem when it snowed, but I’ve been there when it rained.

I guess most folks don’t know the feeling of diesel-coated air like folks do there. The sound of buses and cars honking and people milling, shouting… The dirt that is so worn into the pavement and the cobblestones that they fade away after a few years, and more stones come in on top, so much so that the city has climbed in elevation over the centuries. As if the stepping and churning of feet brought little bits of earth from all around the world to the holy streets and buildings of this little city. Jerusalem.