TEAM GOLIATH: Do you see what I see?

United Way: Do you see what I see?
Gateway, model shelter: Do you see what I see?
Gateway Board of Directors: Do you see what I see?
Reed’s Innovation Delivery Team: Dou you see what I see?
Union Mission: Do you see what I see?
Emory University Health Care, Inc.: Do you see what I see?
Manny Fialkow (philanthropist): Do you see what I see?
Central Atlanta Progress: Do you see what I see?
Atlanta Downtown Improvement District: Do you see what I see?
Fulton County Commission: Do you see what I see?
Atlanta HUD: Do you see what I see?
Rector Hoare: Varsity Grill Episcopal: Do you see what I see?
Sanitized Corridor of churches and synagogues: Dou you see what I see?
Argus himself, Alan Harris: Do you see what I see?

It’s Christmas time again. It is that time of all times in the year, Dickens reminds us, when Want is most keenly felt and Abundance rejoices. Let us see the bulging coffers of the worthies listed above. And let us see if one of them sees the agony of any of the following:

• On the night of December 20-21, EIGHTEEN children and NINE mothers slept on mats in the lobby of the Peachtree Pine Community.
• This exact scenario has occurred over and over again since June of this year.
• The Gateway Shelter, called the “model” shelter by TEAM GOLIATH conspirators, closed its doors to women then to women and children in the summer of 2013.
• Overpasses loaded with people under blankets for Christmas week
• Men and women are begging all over downtown Atlanta.
• Doorways of churches full of people huddles under blankets
• A man digging through a garbage can in the shadow of Dr. King’s tomb
• A family sleeping in their car just off Ponce
• MARTA bus stops serve as shelters day and night

He that has eyes let him see the pain at our doorsteps. He that has ears let him hear the cries of the children not only in Bangladesh but also in Atlanta.

James Wilson Beaty
Jeremiah 22:16
December 21, 2013

Tis The Season To Be Jolly, Fa La La

Tonight, December 20, 2013, 18 homeless children and their 9 mothers will sleep on mats in the LOBBY of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Inc. That place is called The Community at Peachtree Pine. Today, December 20, 2013 a team made up of 5 powerful Atlanta law firms questioned an expert witness. These law firms represent downtown power players who will if at all possible close Peachtree Pine. The powers will not help these 27 Atlanta citizens tonight. And these powers will strangle the hapless Task Force in its efforts to help them.

What are we? What have we become?

Good night, Chet. Goodnight Jim Lee Scott. Good night United Way. Good night City Council. Good night Central

Atlanta Progress. Good night Manny Fialkow. And a Merry Christmas to all.

James Wilson Beaty
Jeremiah 22:16
December 20, 2013

Jerusalem Paid Dearly For Trampling Its Poor

Downtown Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s day paid dearly for its trampling of the poor. The palace politicians, the business coterie and the temple theologians paid dearly for their treatment of their poor brothers and sisters. They imprisoned their fellow citizens the way hunters cage birds. Orphans and widows were neglected. Their courts were filled with judges whose raison d’etre was gain. They fraudulently stole property from the weak citizenry. They defamed the good name of righteous people.

Most of their prophets prophesied falsely and their priests acted on their own authority. And the people loved it this way. For their egregious arrogance they got far more than they had ever dreamed in their wildest nightmares. Emptying their bank accounts and serving jail time would have been preferred to what they got. What they got was 70 years captivity in a strange land. Babylonian foot soldiers led them in chains. The most powerful went first followed in order down the social ladder. Psalm 137 reports how these very villains sat down by the rivers of Babylon and wept. They longed for Jerusalem but they did not sing songs of home. Their harps hung on the willow trees. Their captives required that they sing one of those Zion hymns.

One of the outcries of the Jerusalem oppressors, now oppressed themselves was, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

Sometimes, what goes round comes round. It came around in downtown Jerusalem.

James Wilson Beaty
Jeremiah 22:16
December 5, 2013

The Seeds Of War

The constant rattling of sabres in the Middle East frightens the most courageous among us. As I read some month’s ago the accounts of rockets having been fired from the Gaza Strip to Jaffa just outside Tel Aviv, I tremble. The next paragraph tells me that the Israelis retaliated by killing the top military leader of the Palestinians. Father Daniel Berrigan’s words on war become more poignant whenever we see the ravages of war. Of their sabres and rockets and drones Priest Berrrigan says, “Pride and chariots and spears and all of their military hardware and vaunting claptrap go – – exactly nowhere.” (p. 63 ISAIAH, SPIRIT OF COURAGE GIFT OF TEARS)

The seeds that grow war contain many ingredients. Two, however, that are constant are greed and hate. The government of Tel Aviv is as much Judaism as the government of Washington is the New Testament. The Book of Deuteronomy is a reminder. It is written because Israel like all people forgets. The heart of Judaism is Deuteronomy 6:4, “hear. O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” And that God is the Lord of the individual and the Lord of all peoples. Israel is mandated to obey all the commandments of God including those which require Israel to be a blessing to ALL people. Let Washington and Tel Aviv read Deuteronomy; obviously, they have forgotten.

James Wilson Beaty
Jeremiah 22:16
December 3, 2013

Overwhelming Support Acknowledged

During 2013 the support given The Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless has been nothing short of miraculous. Inkind and financial donations as well as volunteer hours have steadly increased. We never reveal names of donors or sources of donations; however, I can write that over forty churches and other organizations come faithfully to feed the hundreds who live at Peachtree Pine. The Task Force staff tells me that the outpouring of donations and calls to help this Thanksgiving matched any year in recent memory.

While dodging the volleys of attackers and conspirators, we pause a moment to thank sincerely the hundreds of donors and volunteers who have sent donations and who have come to offer help. New congregations far from the “sanitized corridor” have adopted the people at Peachtree Pine. Their generosity and kindness has been remarkable.

On September 25, 2010, I posted a piece asking members of TEAM GOLIATH to give money to homeless people through the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless. I asked, “What shall I put you down for?” I asked the same members of the conspiracy who have tried unsuccessfully for decades to steal and shut down the property call Peachtree Pine. My question to the conspirators comes from Charles Dickens’ CHRISTMAS CAROL. Remember the kind gentlemen who on a snowy London day approached Ebenezer Scrooge, “A few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time comma, because it is the time of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?” “Nothing!” replied Scrooge.

In 2010 I asked the conspiracy that I named TEAM GOLIATH if in their ABUNDANCE they could spare a dime. I did not hear from one conspirator. Elie Wiesel says that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. From TEAM GOLIATH on the subject of giving, we hear silence. That TEAM is loud with defamation, fraud and tortious interference. But we have not heard the greatest of theirs howls. They will come into the courtroom to answer under oath why their withholding meat and drink and warmth from the poor is their modus operandi.

I confess that with the boot of conspiracy pressing on the throat, one tends to pay attention to the pain. I know that we need to look out from under the boot to thank the hundreds who everyday bring peace and love.

James Wilson Beaty
Jeremiah 22:16
December 3, 2013