Pass Along as a Favor for Doc Mishler

Several months ago I blogged an article about Doc Mishler, the Pilgrim, crossing America on horseback to initiate a dialog among Christians and non-Christians alike about the words of Jesus in the Gospels and their significance for us today. I had left a comment, a very rare thing for me to do, and in that way my @ must have been passed on to doc. For I recieved a plea from him to day, just one of thousands he sent out I'm sure, to pass on a message for him by republishing the copy of the message he delivered to Congress, since no one in the MSM has picked up on it yet.

So I am passing it on as is. It is fairly long but worth it. Especially for anyone having an affinity for the prophetic works in word and deed of Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Biship Tutu, The Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh as Doc Mishler's courage, conviction and compassion is in a class with theirs.

Doc's plea to me:

Hello Joy,

I am sending you the following message that i delivered to congress through Bread for the World; there are children in the world that are so hungry that God can not appear to them except in the form of bread----What we need is a chain reaction of awareness from person to person to person---can you help?

No one has had the "balls" to publish this; perhaps you, or you may know someone???

Peace, doc

Doc's message to Congress and the world::

From: " LIVING IN THE SADDLE AND SLEEPING AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS"
-----On: WHAT CAN THE GOVERNMENT DO NOW----
Nearly 40 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best:
"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin to shift from a "thing-orientated society to a "person-orientated" society. When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people, the great triplets of racism, materalism and militarism are incapable of being conquered. This call for a world wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the alter of retaliation. We have committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I am going to continue to say it. And we will not stop it because of our pride and arrogance as a nation. A nation that year after year continues to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
Never before has it been possible to feed all the hungry children of the world. Yet, because there is national insecurity, our government is engaged in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars wastefully on weapons of mass destruction (WMD), while millions of children are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is expanded on the military budget would enable all of God's children to fill their stomachs. Our president has sprouted a weird concept of security and a warped sense of morality. WMD are sheltered like treasures while children are exposed to starvation. The nature of the evil lies in our cooperation! Money spent on WMD belong to the hungry children.
This is the Christian Horseman from Montana who rode on horseback through your town. Chief Spirit, Faith, Charity, Gooddog and I are wintering in Virginia waiting till spring to ride into DC to talk with our President. Mr. President, what did Jesus say? (For those who are interested and into computers type in doc mishler on any search engine for some of the stories about the journey.)
I wish to personally thank all the wonderful compassionate God loving people that welcomed us with God's love on our journey from Montana through Idaho, Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennesse, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsyvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia. We could not have made it without God and God works through people. All people.
Unfortunately, an air of religious intolerance permeates North America. Many Americans and I am told Canadians equate "Christians" with being kind, decent or good. This implies that non-Christians lack these qualities. Some who call themselves Christians reflect this prejudice. Yet, on this journey I found Christ is love, and in all His created! Praise the Lord. "God is love" (1 John 4:16). This does not contradict His holyness; instead, it compliments and magnifies it and gives it its deepest meaning. The person who does not love does not know God; even love for one's enemies! (Matt. 5:44). True Christians are not judgemental and unloving. They keep in mind that Scripture doesn't command them to go out and rail against false teachings; rather, it encourages them to offer biblical reasons with gentleness and respect (1 Pet. 3:15).
I am especially grateful for the hospitality extended to us in your hometown. I would like to take this opportunity to invite ALL people to e-mail me at doc_mish@hotmail.com and discuss our journey. We can also talk about graduating our government from the Old Testament to the New Testament: What did Jesus say?
The original teachings of Jesus transcend the social conception of life which may be limited by exclusive love of one's family, church family, tribe, nation, race, or even humanity. These socialistic brotherhoods are based on love of personality, but Christian love expands because it is based on the love of God. I find five ideals and commandments of Jesus expressed in the book of Matthew outlined here as a precursor to future elaboration:
1) have no ill-will against anyone, but love all; don't even offend with a word;
2) feed the hungry;
3) live only in the present and don't worry about the future; don't swear and don't promise;
4) never use violence nor repay evil with evil, but suffer insult and give up possessions; and
5) love our enemies and those who hate us by treating them as ourselves...
Using God's love for our foundation premise we conclude with what our government can do now:
From the ancient sages and mystics to modern political activists, the essential reality of peace has not changed. Love for our fellow human beings is superior to hatred and fear. Active nonviolence has been the method of our greatest peacemakers. Philosophers of vision have seen the need for unity of human beings so that differences can be settled by intelligent means. Human civilization is evolving steadily toward a reliance on the Wisdom of God.
What did Jesus say?
The sophistication of scientific technology applied as military force has created an inescapable crises for the human species which must be resolved. To survive, human beings must learn self restraint and less destructive means of resolving conflict.
Not resisting evil with evil is the only way to eliminate evil altogether. It alone makes it possible to tear the evil out by the root, both out of one's own heart and out of the neighbor's heart. This doctrine forbids doing that by which evil is perpetuated and multiplied.
He/She who attacks another and insults them, engenders in another the sentiment of hatred, the root of all evil. To offend another, because they offended us, for the spacious reason of removing an evil, means to repeat an evil deed, both against others and against ourselves.
Therefore it is up to the people to recognize the danger to their lives and demand life-affirming policies from their leaders.
Sanctification of all life: Creation endows all humans with dignity. Moses said that killing humans was wrong because "in the image of God has God made human kind" (Gen. 9:6). God created all human kind (Rev. 4:11). It is by the Grace of and for the Glory of God that we ride...
This is where every person has the opportunity and responsibility to influence the course of our civilization for the good of all.
It does not take a great philosopher to realize that peace in the world would be for the good of all, while war benefits a few at the expense of many.
Some individual government leaders are becoming aware of the true means of peace through active nonviolence. Yet many are still hypnotized by political leaders who use national pride and fear of terrorists to manipulate people for selfish interests.
Over fifty years ago a government leader in Germany said, "Terrorism is the best political weapon, for nothing drives people harder than the fear of sudden death." (As of today over 21,000 wounded U.S. soldiers have been treated at Landstuhl Medical Centre in Germany.) Fear and greed keep the children hungry. Fear weakens the nerves and distorts the judgment.
It is not by fear that humankind must exorcise the demon of destruction and cruelty, but by motives more reasonable, more humane, and more heroic.
Never before has it been possible to feed all the hungry children of the world. Feed the hungry children!
Now that North Korea has admitted that they have been "secretly" experimenting with nuclear weapons (If they had oil we would be poised on the brink of nuclear holocaust), we would be very naive to think that the others in the "axes of evil" don't have or will soon have nuclear weapons.
The threat of nuclear war is to be taken seriously, but it will allow a breathing spell from answering evil with evil against the axes of evil so that better methods can be developed. War can break out suddenly, but peacemaking takes time, patience, education, and communication.
And there is no communication, patience, and education when your children are dying of hunger. There are children in the world that are so hungry that God can't appear to them, except in the form of bread.
The time has come for good people and the goodness in ALL people to rise up and demand that their government feed all the starving children of the world.
Less than two percent of the national budget about 1.25% (10 billion dollars) would feed them all.
Do the math: Eight million people die of hunger or hunger related causes every year, three-fourths of these are children under the age of five. They could all live on less than 2 dollars per day. Two times 365 days equals $730 per year.
Give them each $1000 spread over the year and let them "live it up." One thousand times eight million equals eight billion. The extra two billion would be enough to get the food to them if we didn't buy six hundred dollar toilet seats or five hundred dollar hammers.
These hunger statistics were provided by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Currently one third of one percent of the national yearly budget goes to foreign aid (about 2 billion dollars), and much of that is for guns. Forty seven percent (now over 400 billion dollars) of the budget is spent on the military, and much of that is spent on weapons of mass destruction. No new money is needed to feed the children: your tax money is being used for WMD! Moneys spent on WMD belongs to the hungry children...
Riding on horseback, I rode by 54 nuclear reactors about 10 miles north east of Arco, ID. These nuclear reactors are not being used to make electricity, in fact many are activly making nuclear isotopes.
The people I talked with are not proud of what they are doing. They fear that if they don't cooperate they will loose their job and woun't be able to feed their children.
The ground at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico is contaminated from testing. We were forced to follow the road and couldn't cut across the land as the crow flies like we often did in other areas on the journey.
We stopped at a guard station to water the horses, and the guard showed us, on monitor, the largest laser in the world. I asked him, "what could the government use that for?"
He said, " sure could kill a lota people with the beam of that big baby." Our government was prepared to retaliate with nuclear weapons and WMD if Iraq had used the WMD that they did not have.
Fear is not a basis for peace. What we ought to fear, especially we Americans, is not that terrorists may drop WMD on us but we may allow our government leaders, acting as our representives, may use such weapons in our name.
It is common knowledge that our government is shifting from disassembly to new assembly of nuclear weapons and biological weapons development all across the country.
The nature of the evil lies in our cooperation with it.
Before political leaders will give up their use of military methods to try to solve problems, enough people must be educated to understand better methods. We will never have peace on earth as long as we keep killing each other's children, but we will when we feed them!
In our hearts, this fundamental truth of love for all is felt even though none of our biological children will die of hunger.
You, who are reading this, are probably more enlightened on these points than most. Those who truly realize that love and understanding are more effective than hatred and force are the people who will be changing the world for the better by communicating and educating others.
As Einstein clearly saw, what is needed is a chain reaction of awareness from person to person to person. You too have a dream: that age-old dream of saints and sages--the great commonwealth of the World as the visible embodiment of the brotherhood of human kind.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future! All things start small...
If a present day prophet were to lead the masses to peace by way of God's love, they would speak as one human being to another. With the power of the law of love and the gentleness of the Gospel, they would speak thus: Patriotism is nobel, insofar as it approaches that which is humane, but the very reverse the further it is removed therefrom.
"We don't do body counts," as General Tommy Franks, a good man trained to lead men to kill or be killed performing his duty, put it. 100,000 Iraqi deaths in this war (although, this is on the scale of the death toll after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima), at the hands of US and coalition forces, are hardly news. (Our government rejects this research. Sure we can trust our government, just ask any Native American Indian).
The Bible commands obedience to the government (Rom. 13:1; Titus 3:1; 1 Peter 2:13), but civil disobedience is just when the government attempts to compel unrighteousness (Exodus 5; Dan. 3,6; Rev. 13). Creation endows humans with dignity. Worship and serve ONLY the Creator. Yet it is the created that manifests God's glory.
No interests, however great, are higher than those common to all mankind. Among them, the foremost is the old commandment, as old as the oldest documents of any nation: Thou shalt not kill! You are all of one blood. Love one another. People can. Nations can. All this is eminently possible because God's love transcends the limitations of human kind.
The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all humans. Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world. You can't love God and not feed the hungry children. Money spent on WMD belongs to the hungry children!
What did Jesus say?
A man (he professed to be a Muslim American) in California said, "You got it right Doc our government needs to do unto others as they would have them do unto us. AND DO IT FIRST!"
A woman in Arizona said, "In Christ we have the ultimate example of evil being overcome by good." Resist not evil. Do good to those who hate you.
In Ohio a teenaged girl said, "Ask the president what part of love he doesn't understand?" Love your enemies.
A lady in Maryland told me to tell George, "You can't love God and not feed the hungry children!" Feed the hungry children.
A man in Virginia said tell our president, " We will never have peace as long as we keep killing and torturing each others children, but we will when we feed the children." What so ever you do unto others you do unto me also. God speaks through the people...
"You have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say to you. That ye resist not evil. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your overcoat as well. If someone forces you to go a mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one that ask you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it has been said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you love your enemies, bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt. 5:38-48). "Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you,... I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Matt. 25: 37-40).
A true Christian can see the face of Jesus in the eyes of that little child in Iraq that just died of hunger. Did you hear the child? Just before the light in Her eyes went out; She said, "Forgive them Father for they know not what they have done." Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Her a question, testing Her, and saying. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all yor mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love others as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the Prophets." (Matt. 22:35-40) All humans are brothers. There is no attack in love!
Let us face squarely the historistic paradox that the nation which goes to war is a nation, usually, genuinely desiring peace. War is the outcome, not mainly of evil intentions, but on the whole, of good intentions which go astray or are frustrated. It is made, not usually by evil men knowing themselves to be wrong, but is the outcome of policies pursued by good men ususally passionately convinced that they are right with God.
The nature of the evil lies in our cooperation with it.
Mr. President, Jesus loves you. And so do WE...
God's love,
Doc Mishler (email: doc_mish@hotmail.com)

I appologize for not reestablishing the paragraph breaks after they were morphed by the cut and paste process. I have run out of time and wore out my eyes to get this far.

Please, anybody who finds this message compelling, pass it along in any way you have available. You can cut and paste into and email, or into your own blog. Or you can send those you think might be interested the perma link to this post so they can read and pass it along.

Thank-you all.
Love Joy Peace

P.S. see my riff on Matt. 25: 37-40 while you are at it and pass it along too if you find it worthy.