THE PULPIT: Cuba among neighbors in pastor's reach
Shaking hands means a lot to Max Hale.
The gesture can be a simple act of friendliness, he said. But it can also represent something deeper, as when the Colorado Springs resident shook hands in 1955 with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Later, he shook hands with Harold Franklin, who in 1964 became the first black to enroll in Auburn University in Montgomery, Ala. Hale was Franklin’s on-campus escort on the first day of classes.
“Shaking hands symbolizes crossing boundaries and creating neighborhoods,” Hale, 77, said.
Hale has warmly greeted thousands of people throughout his life, but his meeting and greeting Cubans in 2000 during a bike trek in the country was extra special because it helped revive his commitment to social justice.
Hale, a former minister in the United Methodist Church and United Church of Christ, heads the Pastors for Peace chapter in Colorado Springs. Founded in 1988, Pastors for Peace is dedicated to sending humanitarian aid to Cuba, which the U.S. has had a trade embargo against since 1960 because of the country’s communist leadership and poor human rights record.
“We’ve got a nation of warm and friendly people who are our neighbors who are admittedly under a totalitarian regime,” Hale said. “I think it is unjust for the U.S. to put an embargo against another nation.”
Hale formed the Colorado Springs chapter of the New York-based Pastors for Peace in 2007. That year, he and a handful of volunteers collected food donated by several Springs churches and medicine donated by area businesses to send to Cuba.
The goods were placed on a bus that was part of a Pastors for Peace caravan of vehicles loaded with supplies.
About 100 volunteers, including Hale, were part of the caravan that traveled to a city on the gulf coast of Mexico, where the supplies were loaded onto a freighter bound for Cuba. The supplies were received and distributed by the Cuban Council of Churches.
Hale and other volunteers then flew from Mexico to Cuba for an eight-day tour, visiting hospitals, community centers, organic farms and schools.
During his decades as a pastor, Hale’s interest in social justice took a backseat to his church ministries. But his passion for Cubans has sparked the same desire he felt as a young man in race-torn Montgomery — the need to take action to ensure that people’s human rights are not violated.
Poor health precluded Hale from taking part in the Pastors for Peace bus trip in July, but he’s hopeful he’ll be well enough to go next year.
“In taking aid to our Cuban neighbors and resisting the unjust trade and travel embargo the U.S. has imposed on Cuba, we are fulfilling the Gospel mandate to seek both aid and justice for God’s children,” Hale said.
“Doing this is a logical extension from my ministry behind the pulpit.”
To read more religion news, go to my blog, The Pulpit, at thepulpit.freedom blogging.com.
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