THANK YOU,  . . . . .IT APPEARS THAT THE “BLACKLISTING”  OF POLITICAL OPPONENTS  BY ONE OF THE MOST PREJUDICED AND TREACHEROUS ADMINISTRATIONS IN AMERICAN HISTORY IS WELL UNDERWAY, . . .

THEIR DESIRE TO “ESTABLISH“ SO CALLED “CHRISTIAN” COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS AS THE BASIS FOR THE ENTIRE JUDICIAL, COURT, AND LEGAL SYSTEM OF THIS NATION IS THE GREATEST THREAT AGAINST “RULE OF LAW” SINCE THE FIRST AMENDMENT WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1791

IT IS DESPICABLE AND UNDERMINES NATIVE AMERICANS AND “FREEDOM LOVING PEOPLE” THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

From: Jim Harrington
Subject: [TCRP] Justice Dept. Denied Rights to Job Seekers from TCRP
To: tcrp@tcrpmail.org
Date: Thursday, July 3, 2008, 12:00 PM

Hiring report shows injustice in Justice Department by James C. Harrington On July 4, we celebrate our declaration of independence from a monarchy that plagued the colonies with political suppression and favoritism. The question to ask ourselves this year is how does it happen our Department of Justice is now doing the same thing, albeit in a kinder and gentler fashion, but still oppressively? A number of social justice and environmental groups, including the Texas Civil Rights Project, recently learned we appeared on the U.S. Department of Justice employment “hit list.” The June 24 report, prepared for Congress by the DOJ Offices of Inspector General and Professional Responsibility, revealed rampant partisan, politically-motivated hiring at DOJ. Anyone who ever worked with TCRP was barred from DOJ employment. We were branded as a “liberal” organization, as juxtaposed to “conservative” groups (from which DOJ would hire). There is nothing uniquely “liberal” about TCRP’s work. In fact, you could just as well call it “conservative” since our job is to protect and defend the constitutional and civil rights of poor and low-income people who do not have the resources to hire their own attorney. What the Administration really was doing, until caught, was “no-listing” organizations it perceived as opposing its policies or actions, and favoring those groups that were supportive. I have been doing civil rights work for 35 years, and it makes not one bit of difference to me whether the Administration is Republican or Democrat; if the government violates the law and hurts people, the courts are there for redress. Our job is to help people find redress. The most reprehensible part of this secret DOJ agenda was how it hurt the lives of young folks, especially law students, who come to volunteer with us. About 25 law students and volunteers generously give their time every year to help us help people. Examples of the some of their work include handling cases for people with physical disabilities, assisting abused immigrant women become independent and get status in this country under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), helping farm workers collect minimum wages, suing police officers who engage in brutality, and so on. Why should their future careers be penalized because of their personal generosity and sacrifice as students? They give up significant summer salaries to help people, only to be punished by their government. In prior Administrations, both Republican and Democratic, DOJ has hired students who have worked with TCRP, but that was when DOJ hired people on merit. That has not been the case with this Administration. One would think that DOJ would want to hire students or lawyers who have done community work and understand the day-to-day application of the law. If the First Amendment means anything, it is that people have to right to say, think, and do as they want, so long as they don’t hurt others, without any political retaliation from the government. DOJ apparently has yet to learn, and practice, that basic premise of our democracy. It’s especially reprehensible when this systemic political discrimination occurs in the very agency charged with enforcing fair and impartial justice throughout the country. On July 4, we celebrate our declaration of independence from a monarchy that plagued the colonies with political suppression and favoritism. The question to ask ourselves this year is how does it happen our Department of Justice is now doing the same thing, albeit in a kinder and gentler fashion, but still oppressively? And, once having asked the question, what are we going to do to make sure our government respects our rights, and not undermines them? *** James C. Harrington is Director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit foundation, promotes civil rights and economic and racial justice throughout Texas. The project has an office in El Paso. The joint report of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility, An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring in the Department of Justice Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program (June 24, 2008) can be found here. Support the work of TCRP for Justice in Texas Civil Rights: Donate Today! Texas Civil Rights Project

                                                                 6900 N.Vandiver, H206
                                                                          San Antonio, TX 78209
                                                                          June 5, 2008
  

Secretary Michael Chertoff 
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington , DC 20528

Dear Sir:

              I have contacted the F.B.I. office here in San Antonio, Texas to ask for protection as a candidate to seek the office of President of the United States .   I was directed to the local office of the Secret Service and from there was directed to the U. S. Congress.

            I live in Texas Congressional District 21.  Representative Lamar Smith’s office was kind enough to refer me to the Federal Criminal Code, Title 18, Part 2, Ch.203, Sec. 3056 to request protection from your office.

            Because of my grave concerns respecting  the “establishment of religion” (First Amendment), especially regarding U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and because of allegations that the nation of Israel secretly harbors weapons of mass destruction (nuclear weapons),  I cannot condone Zionism or the public advocacy of a pro-Zionist campaign under “color of law” by Congress or any other governmental authority.  I am enclosing a copy of a formal complaint that I initiated against the Federal Communications Commission and a pro-Zionist radio broadcaster in San Antonio,Texas.
                                                                                    Thank you,

                                                                                    Rhett Smith

cc: U.S.Rep. Lamar Smith

    Secret Service-San Antonio office

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTWESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXASSAN ANTONIO RHETT SMITH,  Plaintiff V.                                                                    Civil No. SA-08-CA-0189 FB KTSA RADIO STATION, et al           Defendant(s)   OBJECTIONS—Response to ORDER and RecommendationSigned May 01, 2008           Plaintiff, Rhett Smith, is requesting action from the FCC that BMP Radio (KTSA 550AM) violated rules that “all qualified candidates for public office shall be given equal opportunity for use of broadcasting facilities.” Magistrate Judge John Primomo suggests that above defendants are “private persons”; and therefore can be Zionists or pro-Zionists “legally.”  Whether Plaintiff, Smith, was denied “equal time for that reason,” is not the question; rather, was Plaintiff, Smith, denied equal time ?          In the lawsuit Smith v. Gardner (Cause no. SA-07-CA-0982 OG) the Defendant, Gardner, was the Secretary of State of New Hampshire,—responsible for conducting that state’s Presidential Primary election; clearly a ‘Government actor’ subject to “restraint” of the First Amendment.          Plaintiff, Smith, is herein stating “a claim against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC),” which has had adequate opportunity to respond to the above mentioned complaint about rules violations.                                                                     __________________________ 

The first of the First Amendment’s two religion clauses reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of __a Zionist state of__religion”

No. 08-50017

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT   RHETT R. SMITH  , Plaintiff-Appellant 

                V.

 IOWA State Republican Party,Texas State Republican Party,Federal Communications Commission,American Broadcasting Co. (ABC) News,Cable News Network (CNN),KTSA Radio Station (San Antonio),  

      Defendants-Appellees

               Appeal from the Western District  of Texas      Case No. 5:07-cv-00668-xr 

 MOTION FOR REINSTATEMENT           Appellant, Rhett Smith, asserts that two (Defendants) Appellees in the original complaint—Republican Party of Texas Chairman, Tina Benkiser, in January and KTSA Radio Station, in February—have acted, since the original complaint filing date in a manner so egregious as to require that Appellant had to notify the Courts of their roguishness which has required additional filings.          Relief sought: demand that the FCC and regulated broadcasters acknowledge Plaintiff’s First Amendment protection from “establishment of religion” and further initiate an appropriate “fair” method of addressing non-Zionist candidate Rhett Smith.   Without the First Amendment, religious minorities could be persecuted, the government might well establish a national religion, protesters could be silenced, the press could not criticize government, and citizens could not mobilize for social change. . Others, including a majority of the justices of the current Supreme Court, believe the term prohibits the government from promoting religion in general as well as the preference of one religion over another. In the words of the Court in Everson:“The establishment of religion clause means at least this: Neither a state nor the federal government may set up a church. Neither can pass laws that aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion… . Neither a state or the federal government may, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and state.’” The First Amendment ensures that “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein,” as Justice Robert Jackson wrote in the 1943 case West Virginia v. Barnette.And as Justice William Brennan wrote in New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, the First Amendment provides that “debate on public issues … [should be] … uninhibited, robust, and wide open.”             Plaintiff-Appellant, Rhett Smith, prays for unspecified monetary damages from non-government defendants.                                                                                                 RHETTR.SMITH,ProSe                                                               Attorney for Plaintiff-Appellant

NO. 08-50017   

      IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT RHETT R. SMITH , PlaintiffAppellantAppealfromtheWesternDistrict                                                                              of Texas                                                           Case No. 5:07-cv-00668-xr               v. IOWA STATE REPUBLICAN PARTY, et al   

     Defendant(s)-Appellee(s)

 MOTION FOR REINSTATEMENT           Appellant, Rhett Smith, asserts that two (Defendants) Appellees in the original complaint—Republican Party of Texas Chairman, Tina Benkiser, in January and KTSA Radio Station, in February—have acted, since the original complaint filing date in a manner so egregious as to require that Appellant had to notify the Courts of their roguishness which has required additional filings.          Relief sought: demand that the FCC and regulated broadcasters acknowledge Plaintiff’s First Amendment protection from “establishment of religion” and further initiate an appropriate “fair” method of addressing non-Zionist candidate Rhett Smith.   Without the First Amendment, religious minorities could be persecuted, the government might well establish a national religion, protesters could be silenced, the press could not criticize government, and citizens could not mobilize for social change. . Others, including a majority of the justices of the current Supreme Court, believe the term prohibits the government from promoting religion in general as well as the preference of one religion over another. In the words of the Court in Everson:“The establishment of religion clause means at least this: Neither a state nor the federal government may set up a church. Neither can pass laws that aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion… . Neither a state or the federal government may, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and state.’” The First Amendment ensures that “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein,” as Justice Robert Jackson wrote in the 1943 case West Virginia v. Barnette.And as Justice William Brennan wrote in New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, the First Amendment provides that “debate on public issues … [should be] … uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”             Plaintiff-Appellant, Rhett Smith, prays for unspecified monetary damages from non-governmental defendants.                                                                                           RHETT R. SMITH,Pro Se                                                  Attorney for Plaintiff-Appellant 

About the First Amendment


Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
— The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Related

Best First Amendment books

First Amendment timeline

The First Amendment in the Colonial newspaper press

  thank you,   Peter Macdonald Sgt USMC Semper Fi . . .

I will post your email on my website:    www.Rhett08.com

I am a candidate for President of the United States

I honor you and pray that the whole world hears Peter Macdonald’s voice. . .

Rhett Smith

Peter Macdonald <nh.red.sox@gmail.com> wrote:

Life ? Another Day 4-07-08

Boston Globe criticism

Peter Macdonald 465 Packersfalls rd Lee NH 03824 603-659-6217

I served Our country as a U.S. Marine. I returned a combat related 100% disabled veteran to New Hampshire. I have volunteered every day since I returned helping others to relieve my guilt of coming back alive. Better people than I, gave their lives so that our Supreme Law “Constitution” protected every individual equally. I have relived events from my experiences as a Marine every day since I came home. This letter is not about me, it is about every child since the creation of the U.S. that has served to protect and defend said Constitution. Some people believe that I should stop writing letters. Newspapers and media refuse to print my letters. The VA stops my medical care to prevent my writing letters. The Strafford County Sheriff’s office highlights words in RSA’s to inform me my letters are criminal acts. These deputies are now Judge Fauver’s personal enforcers against public opinion of Fauver. The Boston Globe sends me email telling me to commit suicide. Our children go off to foreign soil to serve the U.S. and return to be striped of our rights, dignity, and medical care.

Do Veterans deserved to have our opinion printed? Does a Veteran’s opinion only matter if it does not expose criminal acts committed by judges and government officials? Should judges and government officials have the right to violate the law to harm a disabled veteran that dares volunteer help to others. Look at the care given to returning Veteran’s with injuries from combat. Many slip through the cracks and are set a drift in society to become homeless or dead after being discharged. VA hospitals are second class medical facilities where some doctors don’t speak English. Veteran’s care is dependent on fitting with in a budget. A caring VA staff care is limited by administration officials. The NH government officials are so daring that they use a disabled veterans health as a weapon to control public information and NH VA officials allow this crime. Life? Another day where the newspapers believe censoring the words of a disabled veteran will make the U.S. a better place for all to live. The NH motto is “Live Free or Die”, it should be “NH Veteran’s should die before coming home” I have violated no laws and I write the truth. Ask! Why should a newspaper print articles about me and ask me to commit suicide yet they refuse to print the words of the disabled Veteran being harmed? The NH governor should listen to my words.

Peter Macdonald Sgt USMC Semper Fi

http://calendar.yahoo.com/smithrhett

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:44:44 -0700 (PDT)
From:	”rhett smith” <rhett.smith@yahoo.com>  View Contact Details   Add Mobile Alert
Subject:	Re: Fw: Easter and Faith: For Christians Grappling with the Spiritual Issues of Holy Week
To:	“Tom Keene” <tomkeene@grandecom.net>
CC:

thank you, Tom Keene, 

                 Today is Good Friday, . . . . as you know, I have been ”grappling” with Faith and Religion  for so long now ; . . . I remember my childhood in the 1950’s and my grandmother (God rest her Soul) whom I love dearly, taking me to the “picture show” in our small north central Texas town to the see ‘ THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK ‘.

         As a child, I was just beginning to understand something of the most devastating event in world history  —– World War II . . .the Holocaust . . .and the nuclear crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki .  As I watched Anne Frank’s life story, how could I have known about the misuses of religion even then, that now threaten the future of all humanity,  . . . or that . . . .  this March 16th would mark the fifth anniversary of the brutal death of Rachel Corrie who was crushed by an Israeli D-9 Caterpillar bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza Strip. This brave 23-year-old American student from Olympia, Washington, was killed attempting to save a Palestinian home from destruction. Rachel Corrie’s name is probably not familiar to you.  The struggle to defend the rights of Palestinians is not very popular in this country. 

          Now, as an adult, I must somehow re-address the issue of the Holy Land, and not only must I speak of the Christian Revolution that began on this day 2008 years ago, but I must put it in the context of the American Revolution,  . . . .during which

 The first freedoms . . .

  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
                     

 . . . were articulated in the 45 words written by James Madison that we have come to know as the First Amendment.

The Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments to the Constitution — went into effect on Dec. 15, 1791, when the state of Virginia ratified it, giving the bill the majority of ratifying states required to protect citizens from the power of the federal government.

    The First Amendment ensures that “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein,” as Justice Robert Jackson wrote in the 1943 case West Virginia v. Barnette.

   I believe that no person who accepts or proclaims Christ can be a Zionist, . . . 2008 years ago, the religious theologians and government officials attempted to crucify the Christian faith and now 2008 years later, I believe,  “Christian-Zionism” is equivalent to religious “blackmail” and furthermore that condoning the “secrecy” of Israeli  WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (WMD’S)  in the Holy Land is equivalent to “nuclear blackmail” .

  
 
Tom Keene <tomkeene@grandecom.net> wrote:

  

—– Original Message —–

From: Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP)

To: tomkeene@grandecom.net

Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 10:46 AM

Subject: Easter and Faith: For Christians Grappling with the Spiritual Issues of Holy Week

Faith and Easter

    3 Essays that may inspire Christians who grapple with the challenge of Easter: Catholic Father Richard Rohr on Faith,  Evangelical Rev. Tony Campolo on God as Suffering Servant, and Walter Wink on Jesus and Resurrection.

(The Network of Spiritual Progressives is an interfaith organization seeking a world in which love, generosity, kindness, ethical and ecological sensitivity, caring for others, and awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation replace the crass materialism and selfishness of the contemporary world. We welcome submissions from all religious traditions that provide new interpretations or deeper understanding of the spiritual realities of our own lives, of contemporary politics and culture, of traditional texts, or of the universe. Selected articles may be posted on our web site www.spiritualprogressives.org, printed in our affiliated magazine TIKKUN, or shared with our readers through emails like this one. Meanwhile, we wish all our Christian members and friends a spiritually deep and meaningful Good Friday and Easter.  The essays  pritned here are taken from Tikkun magazine. Tikkun: www.tikkun.org  NSP: www.spiritualprogressives.org)

Faith  by Father Richard Rohr

I am wondering if I have ever understood faith-or if I want it now that I am getting the point. The price of faith is much higher than I imagined it to be in my youthful readings about martyrdoms and lives of heroic sacrifice.

Now I know that faith is not believing-certain-ideas-all-evidence-to-the-contrary. It is not dogged loyalty to childhood conditioning or pledges of allegiance to sacred formulas and official explanations. It is surely not the addictive repetition of rituals or practices that keep God under control. These approaches give the ego comfort, but they give little comfort to truth, and even less to the scary and wonderful coming of the Reign of God.

I can only describe faith in its effects: people of real faith seem able to hold increasing amounts of chaos in one tranquil and ordered life. Faith seems to make people spacious, non-controlling, and waiting in awareness. The faith that Jesus praises as salvation (and sufficient in lepers, Samaritans, and those outside the temple system) is something very different than religion as such. It is a capacity within people to contain and receive all things, to hold onto nothing, with almost no need to fear or judge rashly. Faith-people find it unnecessary to secure themselves because they are secure at a deeper level; there is room for Another in that spacious place.

If Someone is not holding together the Big World, then I had best concentrate on making sense out of my own little corner. If No One else is finally in charge, I had best take charge. If No One else is caring for me, I had better be preoccupied with security and insurance. If No One else is naming me, I will be very invested in my own image. If the only joy is self-acquired, then any mood-altering substance will do. All the burden, anxiety, and options are back on me and I must take myself too seriously-it is the glory and the price of secular men and women. When Prometheus can no longer enjoy sitting at the fireplace of the gods, he must steal his own fire, but he pays the price forever. Such seems our contemporary exile. The human mind is enamored and burdened with itself, trying desperately to hold itself together. Trapped in our fractured worlds, we are unable to re-connect with one another.

Because people of faith are comfortable with the totality, they are the only ones who can hold the disparate parts together, make the peace, or “mend the breach.” The recurring temptation is to separate, analyze, and judge the parts, which gives us a sense of control and “understanding.” But Steve Levine speaks universal wisdom when he declares that, “Understanding is the ultimate seduction of the mind. Go to the truth beyond the mind. Love is the bridge.” Faith, driven by love, enables us to give up our need to understand, allows us to let go, and for Someone else to hold us together. It is not a giving up as much as it is an opening up and refusing to close back down for the sake of self-sufficiency and mastery. If this is indeed the character of faith for postmodern people, or any people, then I finally know why faith is so rare and why Jesus himself wondered if he would find very much on this earth (Luke 18:8).

Today, there seems to be a breach in almost every wall. Some have said, the “cosmic egg” that seemed to hold us together for a long time is now broken. “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men” find themselves unable to put it back together again. It feels like the earth moved beneath us somewhere in the mid or late 1960s: the old certitudes, the agreed-upon assumptions, the core values of Western civilization came up for major questioning. Our presuppositions dissolved and the questioning has not stopped. We now find ourselves engaged in major, and sometimes minor, culture wars on almost every personal and social issue. It is all thinkable now, and most of us are beyond being shocked by anything. We are often sad, discouraged, even alienated from the only world we live in. It was so much easier to exist inside the cosmic egg! It feels like exile from home and manifests in rampant abuse, violence, victim behavior, denial, social hysteria, or life-boat ethics. Each enclave of security seems to be clutching at its small certitudes: defiant, assertive, and substituting opinions for deeper identity.

We yearn for breach-menders who can restore our ruined houses, as Isaiah says. We long for great-souled people who can hold the chaos together within themselves-and give us the courage to do the same. In mythology, this is the gift of the queen or the king. In religion it is symbolized by the temple in Jerusalem or the cathedral at the center of the city. In the psychological world, we speak simply of mental and emotional health. In spirituality, we dare to long for God. But our condition instead is always one of exile-”we are pilgrims and strangers on this earth” (Hebrews 11:13). It was in exile that the Jewish religion attained its most mature state. In exile, Isaiah took religious poetry and prophecy to its height. The collectivist ethics of Israel were refined and personalized by Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and the story of Job emerged to push the meaning of faith beyond conventional wisdom. Maybe it is the necessary pattern. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were good religious men, giving Job the traditional religious advice, but it was still insufficient. Exile led Israel to the edges of what it had already experienced and battered open the door to the new realm of faith, which is always more than conventional wisdom. We are in cultural and spiritual exile in America now, and long to return to Jerusalem. Or even Kansas! Maybe a new door needs to be opened.

I doubt whether having a single cultural myth or national story is now possible. That is frightening as we experience the fractured results while groups divide, encircle, and defend: male versus female, rich versus poor, liberal versus conservative, Christian versus non-Christian, pro-life versus pro-choice, renew from within versus change from without, overdeveloped world versus underdeveloped world, straights versus gays, environmentalists versus developers, hierarchies versus memberships, whites versus people of color…. The rifts and chasms are irreparable.

Many are unable to offer one another basic respect, engage in civic dialogue, or honor what God is apparently patient with: the human struggle. The Catholic Church is in disbelief and panic at its inability to be a truly universal communion. But I am still advised by Thomas Aquinas who said, “We must love them both: those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in search for their truth and both have helped us in the finding of our own.”

For the middle-part of this past century the goal seemed to be integration, homogenization, centralization, uniformity for the sake of unity, upward mobility, and acceptance. Suddenly, the pattern is reversing worldwide. Now the words are “multiculturalism,” diversity, smaller units, ethnic identity, decentralization, states rights, and my rights. For such a paradigmatic shift we need a new ethic and vision for ourselves. If it was e pluribus unum (out of the many, one) for the past two hundred years in the U.S., it now feels like e uno multos (out of the one, many). How do you create a new cultural myth when you are now many cultures? Such is our problem.

The overriding temptation of both churches and nations today is to circle their wagons and worship their own Promethean fire. But the ancient ruins must be built on age-old foundations: we need to assert both exclusivity and inclusivity, both priesthood and prophecy, both identity and universal table fellowship, both holding on and letting go, both the nuclear family and global consciousness. The conservative temptation is to put all the energy into the first: batten down the hatches! The liberal temptation usually succumbs to the second: no boundaries are worth defending except the right to choose itself.

We both need to recognize our underlying cultural assumptions, the “myths” out of which we all operate. Until we can admit that largely nonrational myths guide and determine our so-called rational choices, there is little chance that we will “restore the ruined houses” of our civilization.

Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque

Tony Campolo
God As Suffering Servant

In any relationship, it is impossible to express love and power at the same time. Whoever is exercising the most power is expressing the least love, and whoever is expressing the most love is exercising the least power. In expressing love a person must give up power, hence loving makes a person vulnerable.

Consider a particular married couple. He loves her and will do anything to keep her in his life. She, on the other hand, does not love him very much, and is unconcerned as to whether he stays or leaves her. Who in this relationship has the most power? Who can dictate the terms of the