Submitted by Raleigh Booze
This Easter season brings with it a hope in resurrection. We definitely need resurrection in our state, cities, schools, and on our streets.
On Good Friday, a vigil was held at Delia’s Gun Shop in Northeast Philadelphia. A few hundred gathered to express our opposition to lax regulations, which allow guns to easily make it to our streets. All we are asking is for the owner to sign a simple code of conduct, which many gun shops have already signed. The gathered people felt Christ’s suffering as some testified against the many horrors and tragedies experienced by people living in our city. It was powerful.
On Easter Sunday, Jesus was resurrected from the dead. Right now public school funding in PA is being cut by $1 billion dollars ($300 million in Philadelphia), which affects our underfunded neighborhood schools the most. As funding for education is being cut, funding for building prisons is on the rise. The state is planning on building three new prisons within the next year. We need hope in Resurrection.
Last week, Mimi and I along with 5 of her students from the Bright Lights Initiative, ventured to spend the day in Harrisburg to march, share personal stories with senatorial staff, and stand in solidarity with other students throughout the city and state. The event was rather uplifting as we expressed our discontent with the proposed budget for 2011-2012 and dreamed of a better future.
We seem to live in a backwards nation where prisons take priority over our schools. We pray that God will change the hearts of lawmakers to reverse what has been proposed for the next year.
Last Wednesday, the Shalom House Guidance Team held their first of this year’s movie nights. They screened the documentary Independent Intervention. Afterwards they explored the movie’s theme of how the corporation-owned-and-allied media distorted the coverage of the Iraq war and what that meant for the inner working of our so-called democracy in the United States.
In recent weeks, 
