The New Old Slavery

I attended a screening tonight for a documentary to be released to theatres this October entitled "Call and Response...The Concert to End Slavery". It is a project of love for a friend I met a little over a year ago, Justin Dillon, from Oakland, CA. Justin is singer/songwriter who had this issue of human trafficking almost dumped in his lap and he responded by putting together this truly amazing body of work that has to be seen to be appreciated, addressing this reality of 27 million people in slavery around our world TODAY! To see an articulate insight into the film see Shelton Green's wonderful perspective in his blog post (In Reformation) tonight. Justin is headed to Nashville on Wednesday and Washington DC on Thursday and Friday to pave the way for the film's release with screenings similar to tonight's. If you have any interest in this grassroots, open-source movement then visit the film website at www.callandresponse.com. As Dr. Cornnell West says in the filom, "justice is what love looks like in public"! Pling...Pling... dg

Amazed, Humbled, and Grateful Tonight...

The same Texas Board of Paroles and Pardons that voted 5 to 3 against at the last clemency hearing on behalf of Kenneth Foster voted 6 to 1 for clemency today and sent that decision on to Governor Rick Perry who still had to make the decision to stay Kenneth's execution...a decision he frankly had not made in several cases previously when the BPP had recommended clemency...But today...just hours before Kenneth Foster was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection, Governor Perry, with a great deal of personal and political courage, made the decision to commute Foster's sentence from death to life imprisonment, essentially stating that the laws under which Kenneth Foster were sentenced to death needed to reevaluated... I am stunned...I am awed at the power of single small, but significant voices, joined with some culturally significant voices like Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu who made pleas on Kenneth's behalf in the last few days...I am moved by the power of prayer...I have no idea how God had his hand in this other than the spirit of justice and compassion of a army of people who would not give up speaking the truth of their convictions on behalf of this man...a man, the vast majority of that army have never and probably will never meet face to face. I am absolutely convinced God was at work...and I am a little ashamed that it took the life of a man on death row to wake me up to the responsibility I, and we all, have to see the world the way God sees the world. To see what acts of injustice and abuse and manipulation anger him...and ought to anger us. To see what acts of neglect, misfortune and indifference break his heart...and ought to break ours as well.

Some of you know that I traveled to Cambodia last September...I saw many beautiful wonderful Cambodian people and many beautiful wonderful people of all nationalities investing their lives in this country still heartbroken over the genocide Pol Pot and the Killing Fields inflicted a mere 30 years ago. A country that had it's parents and grandparents wiped out so that it is a nation of young people and young adults with little to point them to a legacy of generations gone before. It is also one of the places that has become a breeding ground for evil men who have made slaves of children and young adults. Last night I wrote a letter to the head of the department of Tourism in Cambodia to ask him to help put a stop to the sex trade enslaving young boys and girls, men and women. I don't know that it will do any good...BUT...how many of us wrote letters to Governor Perry suspecting that it would have little effect on an execution that most people thought would happen at 5:30 this evening...and tonight Kenneth Foster is alive in his cell...It takes my breath away...not in a Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis TopGun sort of way, but in a deep deep soul searching way that sees that our connection with God and with each other all across this planet matters...it mattered for Kenneth Foster, it mattered for Rick Perry, and it matters for us...

Thank you for praying, and for writing, and for feeling the heart of God...

Pling...Pling...

dg