Solidarity: At The Heart of the Gospel

Over and over today, in Juarez, Mexico, the theme was solidarity. I had the chance to get down to the border for the first time  in my life and get just a glimpse at life there. To be honest, I didn’t see nearly as much as I heard from people who live and work in Juarez. I spent all day in a classroom with people offering information and analysis, and challenging us white Americans to think about what we are called to, how to live in solidarity with a situation that folks there today said causes them fear they didn’t even have while working in El Salvador with all the violence going on there. Some stats to put it in perspective:

In early 2008, there were roughly 40 murders in the first three months of the year. The new president ordered the militarization of Juarez in order to stamp down on crime, supposedly, and win popularity with the people (he was a marginal winner in the election). Murders went down for the first month. After that, murders continued to escalate, resulting in 1607 murders in 2008. Additionally, kidnapping, which was not a big problem before last year, began as well as extortion. Despite over 2500 federal troops and police, the violence has not lessened but increased. In 2009 so far, there are 994 murders, on pace to surpass last year, with 217 in June alone. There are now 9200 soldiers in Juarez, 2000 federal police, 800 state police…yet the violence worsens. The government says that the drug cartels are to blame, giving the army/police an excuse for the breaches of human rights that are carried out. Over 600 complaints against the army have been filed, yet only about 4 out of every 100 crimes committed against people by the military result in arrest, equalling a 96% impunity. Basically, the military is refusing to investigate and thereby granting the military license to do whatever they want. Today in Juarez, I saw trucks of armed military and police patroling the streets; it just creates more insecurity and chaos.

The result is fear. Everybody is afraid. Many churches in El Paso have strongly encouraged their members to completely avoid going any where near Juarez, and in Juarez, the church puts too much faith in the government and trusts that it will take care of things (the institutional church that is, though the church in the U.S. suffers from the same problem…), rendering it unable to be prophetic. It fears the return of persecution that it faced years ago, and in the interest of saving face and not coming into conflict with the government, it has remained relatively passive.

Yet on the flip side of all this is the reality that all the drug trafficking that happens, and Juarez is the major cocaine channel in Mexico to the U.S., is happening to feed a consumer in the United States. The U.S. is the largest consumer in the world of illegal drugs. There are therefore two ends of the spectrum that need people working harder for true peace. The peace of Juarez depends on the peace in Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and the peace of those cities depends on peace in Juarez. How can we celebrate Independence Day when it is more obvious than ever that the very salvation of our humanity is only possible in realizing our dependence on one another?

I could go on and on about all that was said today because I just learned so much about the city, but more than that I learned from some beautiful people who have dedicated their lives to the gospel of peace. Sister Betty, 76, shared with us three letters from Archbishop Oscar Romero sent to her when she lived in D.C. at the Tabor House, in which he praised their community for their continued acts of solidarity with the El Salvadoran people, as the Tabor House opened their home to refugees from that region of the world. Then Father Peter, 85 (!), shared some of his experiences in solidarity living in different parts of Latin America, and now in Juarez. Such amazing people, so much wisdom embodied in these two folks who have not stopped running the race even in their elder years. We heard other stories, one about a recent murder of a man named Jose who had gone into a grocery store to buy ice cream for his son’s birthday party and was shot with his wife and 3 kids waiting in the car. At the funeral, there was an amazing moment where an American priest and the Mexican priest embraced and just wept together, symbolizing what I said above, that we are connected in ways we cannot describe with words.

The other word that comes to my mind in with the word “solidarity” is “hospitality.” True hospitality, true welcoming of the stranger and being a part of the life of the orphan and widow is recognizing the Christ in the other and suffering with them. “They knew him in the breaking of bread,” as it is said, and in our hospitality we can share Christ even as we receive Christ in the enemy and the stranger. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” says Tertullian. Solidarity, hospitality; these require a willingness to die to self and to risk bodily death. This is at the center of the Gospel message, that Christ came to suffer along with those who suffer, that he might ease our suffering. Another key message today was that in the end it doesn’t matter “why”; solidarity means meeting the suffering and becoming part of it in compassionate service. Solidarity is a permanent attitude of encounter with humanity, and we need concrete examples of it. To divorce piety and spirituality from solidarity and action is to separate God from justice, Jesus from the cross, and humanity from humanity.

What to do? Well, to put it bluntly, Get out of the U.S. Go to Mexico, or Iraq, or Palestine, or Colombia, or any number of other places in the world. Go there, be ready to die alongside brothers and sisters so that the Gospel of Peace can be proclaimed. If that seems impossible, go to the other end of the spectrum. Go to the margins, to the poor, to the drug infested neighborhoods that (yes) are even part of the suburbs of the U.S. Be ready to die. Peace comes at a cost, but not the cost of military and police, but at the cost of the willing disciples of the Prince of Peace to die, to express the greatest love, to lay down your life for brothers and sisters without violence or hatred towards the enemy. If that sounds impossible, it’s not. But if you’re still not able to do that, practice radical, revolutionary hospitality. Invite an immigrant family over for dinner. Keep a guest room available and look for an opportunity to invite Jesus to stay with you (Jesus being the stranger, the alien, and the marginalized). Encourage your church to be receptive towards immigrants, reach out to them specifically, and raise money to send to places like Juarez. All of the above ways are equally beautiful, equally inacting the kingdom of God, of declaring the year of the Lord’s favor, the Jubilee, the new creation. Shalom.

“Not to act is to act. Not to speak is to speak.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Free to Be Bound or Interdependence Day

I am not independent. It is a myth of indiviudalism and self-absorbed egoism that says that I am an entity unto my self, an island which can operate without the influence of others. I have no desire for independence; I’m comfortable spending the rest of my life trusting others and committing to being interdependent, knowing that in my time of need, they will supply out of their abundance, and in my times of abundance I will supply their need. Some good folks at the Englewood Review have crafted 40 good ideas about how to spend the 4th of July in ways that reflect our interdependence, across nationalities, races, economic classes. Interdependence as people, not as nations. Especially for Christians, July 4th is nothing but another day on of the year in which to be thankful for a chance to be converted again, to repent, to turn again and again to the cross, and to die to ourselves that we might live in Christ. Our “Independence Day,” as the Church, is Good Friday and Easter Sunday, when we became free from death, though never independent. But, in this country (and sadly in the church too often) to question celebrating national holidays (which for some reason almost always seem to involve a recognition of “freedom” which came through war) gets you branded as unpatriotic, unAmerican, and even unChristian (because, after all, Christians should understand that “freedom isn’t free” and that freedom is the most highly cherished of values…). Well, I confess that I am utterly and unapologetically unpatriotic and unAmerican. However, I am a serious (mixed in with a good dose of holy laughter and tom foolery) Christian, and I believe that Christians and churches should not celebrate the holidays of the Empire.

What’s wrong with a picnic and a few fireworks? Nothing. I can’t say no to an opportunity to cook-out and watch fireworks, I’ll admit.  But, you’ll never catch me wearing a “USA” T-shirt, decorating my house/picnic table in the “colors that don’t run,” or making any prayer, song, hymn, or speech thanking anybody for going to war (for me?) or dying so that I might have all the freedoms that this country enjoys (the tired old argument about free speech, which enables me to write such disparaging remarks about the country that I’m supposedly indebted to, is usually the first words out of someone’s mouth when they catch you disagreeing with nationalist feelings and displays of patriotism). As a Christian, my only allegiance is to the cross, to the king, to the one who died and is risen and with whom we have the hope of rising, as the new creation is ushered in and God’s kingdom comes to earth as it is in heaven. I believe strongly that that makes it impossible to express any other allegiance to country without betraying your True King. If you take the analogy of God as the jealous lover, than to even say the pledge of allegiance is to prostitute yourself to another for ephemeral pleasure and reject the eternal love and goodness and reality of our lover Jesus.

The reality, that the cross teaches us and that St. Paul says over and over in his letters, is that we are Free to Be Bound (different subject in the book, same principle and an appropriate term), bound to one another and to God. Our freedom at the cross exemplifies perfect freedom in life: choosing to give oneself fully to God and fully for others. Jesus’ act on the cross is the quintessential covenantal act of obedience and self-giving. We need no others, and Christian history has supplied us with many, many examples of others who have done similarly that weren’t soldiers or presidents or emperors.

I’m not one to complain that I am allowed to exercise free speech and the like (I’m not ignorant of the easy state of things in this country compared to others), but I actually wonder if such freedoms and ease of life has contributed to the downfall of the church. The church is at its strongest when it is persecuted, because that’s when we know that our weakness is made strong in Christ. The early church faced persecution and became known to the Greeks as they said, “See how they love one another!” Early Christians practiced radical hospitality and love that challenged the authorities and brought hardship on themselves, so who could blame them when they were offered, in Constantine, the opportunity to have fewer of their number fed to the lions? BUT, the church has not recovered from the marriage of Church and State, something that continues today in a pseudo-Christian religion that permeates the government, parts of society, and even our churches, as evidenced by the hymns to country and militarism that will inevitably happen on Sunday. We don’t need to long for a Christian America (which supposedly once existed, which I doubt, but even if it did it doesn’t do us any good to hope for a Chrstian country since that’s not what Jesus preached and taught us to strive for).

I advocate for a murmur in the quiet revolution of the Church: take down the flags, take them out of the church, take them off church property. Remove patriotic hymns from your hymnals. If you have to, find some other folks and do it in the middle of the night. Replace the flag in the church with the banner of the slaughtered lamb which is our allegiance. It’s not meant to be spiteful or combative, but sometimes the Church needs prophetic witness to herself, to be reminded that she is called to be the bride of Christ and not of Babylon.

The Saga Continues…

Olu has returned from Washington, D.C., though he took the Greyhound because on the way to DC he thought his plane would crash from all the turbulence from the storms. He came to me today at work and we talked for awhile. I showed a couple his paintings to a coworker who is an artist, and a former professional artist who did shows in D.C., and she really liked them, and gave me some links to send to Olu to try and get stuff going here. I kind of feel like I’m at the edge of a cliff, and have taken a dive and so the only thing to do is let go and enjoy the fall.

In other news, I’m 2/3 through War and Peace, though that still means I have 400 pages to go. It’s an amazing critique of War, removing criticism of war from just the political leaders and placing the blame for war on everyone. Sometime in the next week when I finish it, I’ll be sure to include a long post about it.

Jesus and I meet yet again

I’ve noticed that when I start taking prayer seriously, I meet Jesus more often. As I posted before, to pray means to move into compassionate action. Here at the CAC, I’ve been spending a good amount of time in prayer, with out 20 minutes silent meditation in the morning and afternoon, as well as trying to use our labyrinth pretty frequently.

Last Saturday, I took a long bike ride to the University of New Mexico. While there, I sat by a beautiful pond, watching the hummingbirds, wondering if they ever stop moving so fast, gazing in amazement as they zip from one leaf to another. There were dozens of them, just flitting back and forth, and I was so struck by their incredible movement. An invisible hand seemed to just lift them up and down, as if they weren’t flying but being moved on an elevator of sorts. One of my favorite ways to pray is to imagine Jesus sitting next to me on the bench and to just talk as if I was talking to an old trusted friend, always picturing Jesus right there, putting the occasional hand on my shoulder and reassuring me, smiling at my lightheartedness, listening intently. I learned it from Richard Foster’s Celebration of Disciplines, and I’ve become a firm believer in the use of imagination during prayer. It has a way of bringing more of our being into our prayer life. Anyway, I did this for a good 45 minutes, just enjoying the day, wedding parties coming and going. Afterwards, I got up and left, biked around the city for a while longer and then started home.

With about 3 miles left until home, I looked to my left as I passed a black man. In Albuquerque, there aren’t a lot of black men, and this man was very dark and particularly stuck out. I was quite certain it was my friend Olu. Olu is from Nigeria, and I met him the first Wednesday I was in town at the Trinity House Catholic Worker, where he was just visiting for the night. I only briefly talked to him then and then ran into him the next day, while he was walking and I gave him directions back to the Catholic Worker house. The following Saturday, I’d taken a bike ride around town, and ran into him in a community arts shop.  At that point, I’d given up on our meetings being mere coincidence. We had a long talk there about where he was from and what brought him to Albuquerque. Turns out he’s an artist, has lived in D.C. for a few years with his wife, but had no real luck selling his work there. He decided to come out here and try to get a start because ABQ is well known for its arts scene. He’s currently homeless, staying in hotels that he cannot afford. I gave him some money then, and started to try and figure out if he could stay at our house for awhile. That didn’t really work out.

So when I biked past Olu, I recognized him and kept going. I didn’t want to stop, because I knew it would involve a long conversation, having to explain why he couldn’t stay with us, and him needing money which I had none of. As I pedled away, I heard the voice of Jesus yet again (as in the above linked post)- “Are you really going to ignore me after you just spent an hour talking to me?” I still pedeled on, but just kept saying to myself that it was an opportunity to meet Jesus, and if I kept going, Olu would never know, but I would always know that I missed Jesus.

So I turned around. I went back, I said hello, we sat down in a park nearby (with a police car seeming very interested in what we were doing, but that would be a story for another time about the police…like this one from the fall). I told him about why we couldn’t host him (our rooms have to be kept available to people doing retreats who pay for them, which bothers me but I can’t make the rules here…though I might break them), and apologized and offered to try and find him some place. He told me that he needs to go back to DC to get some more of his “h’art” (the way he pronounces it) and his Social Security check and EBT card, and that he needed a plane ticket. Oof, Jesus was really asking me some tough questions there. “Is that money yours?” he asked. “Give to whoever asks of you.” Ouch again. I told Olu that I would think about it, and that if I bought it I’d only buy him a one-way ticket, and told him to come by our house the next day.

Olu came, and I bought him a one way ticket to BWI, and gave him instructions on how to take the MARC train to DC. It was really hard. He was at our house for a long time, and I didn’t feel like just sitting and chatting with him the whole time, I’d been reading and wanted to keep reading. He stayed for dinner, which was nice, but I didn’t feel like my housemates were too happy. I think they thought of him as a bum, quite honestly. One was quite rude to him when it was time for dinner, and I just felt like he was unwelcomed. I took him to the airport later, so he could sleep in the airport for a 6 am flight.  It was hard to keep seeing Jesus in him, but I tried. Every time I felt myself getting impatient (because I had to explain every little detail a dozen times to make sure he understood), I tried to remember that he was Jesus. And I believe he was. Olu is still in D.C. I think. I know he wanted to come back as soon as possible but I doubt he had the money to do that. I personally think it was good for him to spend some time with his wife and maybe think about staying with her.  I know African culture is often different in that area, but I felt sad that he was leaving his wife, so maybe he’s decided to stay awhile, but some how I think I will see him again.

And if I don’t see Olu again, I will see Jesus again, as often as I choose to open my eyes after I pray.

How to remain hopeful, a prayer labyrinth experience

Without a doubt, one of the most challenging aspects of becoming any sort of activist, no matter the cause, is to remain hopeful. I think that challenge becomes even more difficult when you’re working and hoping for systemic change, because the system always seems to win. I’ve come to believe wholeheartedly that we cannot do great things, only small things with great love (fr. Mother Teresa), and that we are called to be faithful not successful.

Tonight I was struck with the potential for hopelessness as I listened to someone at dinner go on and on about how awful the world seems to be. The anger, the frustration, the desperation of someone who tries to look beyond the present but only sees a dismal future is a trying thing to hear, and it really tugs at my sometimes lack of passion and discomfort with the system. I think I’ve become so used to not being satisfied with the system that it fails to anger me sometimes, it fails to stir up my own sense of injustice. I certainly believe with Richard Rohr that the best criticism of the bad is practice of the better, yet zeal for justice does require a certain amount of holy anger. It needs good direction and guidance lest it turn into apathy and bitterness, but for sure, a strong sense of injustice is a requirement for good social action.

This brother was angry. Tired of giving in, tired of a system that says right is wrong and wrong is right. You could tell, just listening to him, that he wanted to love, and felt like he loved everyone, didn’t want to judge or hate people for being sucked into a system. My heart went out to him because I can’t imagine with all the energy he has for anger, dispair, and feelings of oppression that he has much energy left to love. Because we must love, love with everything we have. “Put love where there is no love, and you will find love,” says St. John of the Cross. Love takes energy, and true love requires a whole life commitment and sacrifice, and if our energy is diverted elsewhere, love becomes impossible. Without love, there can be no hope, and without hope, life has no value and no purpose. Love is the hinge on life’s door, the point on the top that spins, the theme of every melody. For me, for the Christian, the cross is the place of that love. It is not a love that takes us out of the world, but that plants us fully into the world know that we are working for the restoring of all that was once made Good. That which was shall be again, in completeness never known to us. That’s the glory of hope, that there is something to hope for, when the earth shall be made new.

At our house here at the CAC, we have a prayer labyrinth that looks like this:

You may notice that there is a cross on the ground, and it is off-center from the center point of the labyrinth. One way of doing this labyrinth is to follow the path, thinking of your life in 7 parts. For each “turn” of the labyrinth, you consider a section of your life, noticing that at some points on the path you seem to be drawn closer to the cross and at others you are walking away, yet the whole time you are being drawn to the Center, the Divine. I find this to be a pretty good way of doing the labyrinth, and it has some pretty powerful aspects to it.

But what I really came away with from our exercise was the realization that in order to keep the cross in full view, I had to keep turning mid-path. I couldn’t just wait until the path turned me again walking toward the cross, I had to turn and walk backwards half of the time if I wanted to keep the cross, that ultimate example of perfect love for God and for neighbor, before me. Walking backwards meant stumbling at times and being on unsure footing, which is a perfect metaphor for the life of sacrificial discipleship. Keeping the cross in full view requires daily conversion, daily turning towards God. Schools for Conversion does a session on turning, and turning, and turning over and over, like Zaccheus in the Bible. He turns several times in the same story, as he draws closer to Christ.

The other major revelation for me was the irony and paradox of the cross being the true Center. The Divine pole in the middle of the labyrinth isn’t the true center. The cross is the perfect paradox because it is the Center that seems off-center, the Center that life doesn’t seem to revolve around. Yet the cross is the anchor, the true Still Point of our lives and our world, which is why we must choose to turn and face it. Like so much of the mystery of faith, Christ seems to be a paradox, the one who offers life through death, both his own and our own, who says that we gain by losing, and we gain life by giving it away. We are blessed when poor and oppressed, cursed when we are the Rich. And, again, Christ is the center, because it is we who must choose to orient our lives around that center instead of letting life draw us in circles and paths that lead to a distant, vague and abstract existence. The cross is definitive reality, all else is but a shadow. If we take the perspective that Christ is the center, then the rest of the world as we know it seems upside down, disorienting if we put our eyes on something else. Imagine trying to walk that labyrinth regarding the cross as the center. It seems impossible, but if you orient yourself correctly, all the other paths will suddenly seem to be misleading. Yet at the foot of the cross, we come and we take on our cross, our death experience that we might have life to the full, and hope to the full, that the renewed heavens and earth has a tangible and tasteable reality.

Final Result of the Cement Block…

Welcome to Albuquerque

I have been in Albuquerque for a little over a week now, and am starting to get used to it, in a sense, but still very much find it to be a sort of culture shock, especially in the area I live. Where I’m staying for the summer is on the western outskirts, and basically it’s like living in Mexico. Every sign is in Spanish, and if it even has English, English is printed second. Everyone is hispanic and there are a lot of undocumented immigrants around. It’s great, I really am fascinated by it. There are chickens, horses, cows, and of course peacocks.

I am work intern at the Center for Action and Contemplation, which means that I work 25-30 hrs a week for the center, and in exchange I am led in contemplative prayer and spiritual formation. This consists of 20 minute silent “sits” at 7:40 am and 4:40 pm each day, regular meetings with a spiritual mentor, volunteering at a homeless services shelter,  and a communal living with the other interns. There are 3 other interns, the closest in age to me is in her mid-40’s, and most of the people who work at the CAC are older as well. Suffice it to say, I’ll be learning a lot from the wisdom of people much older than I am.

That’s all for right now, I’ll update hopefully about once a week from now on. I’m reading War and Peace, so I should have plenty to say…

Albuquerque, here I come!

It’s time for another cross-country excursion. Last summer I took a train from DC to Chicago to Sacramento to Malibu to Seattle, to Chicago, and back to DC.  Pretty much saw all of the upper half of the U.S. This summer, I’ll be living/working in Albuquerque, NM, and I’m taking a road trip through Tenessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico.

I’ll be staying at the Center for Action and Contemplation as an intern. It’s a place that helps Christians to connect contemplative prayer with social action, and to see the intrinsic relationship and necessity of both. I’m hoping to gain yet more wisdom from people who have been praying a lot longer than I have. I’m leaving this Tuesday for the trip, so this may be my last post for awhile. Something like this seems to suggest that fewer hours spent on the Internet this summer would probably be better.

In unrelated news, does anyone have any advice on how to remove a 250-300 lb block of cement from the ground? My mom and I have been digging out the old concrete block that used to hold our basketball hoop up.  It’s 1.5 ft in diameter and 2.5 ft deep, resulting in one incredibly heavy piece of work. We’ve managed to loosen it from the soil, but can’t seem to pry it up or smash it apart with a sledge hammer. It is a cedar of lebanon.

Well, peace and all good to you all. Send me letters if inclined to do so. I’ll try to include some reflections this summer, hopefully as I’m being formed by prayer and meditation.

Listen to Josh Garrels

I hadn’t bought a “Christian” artist’s music since I was in in 9th grade (and I guess technically I didn’t buy this one, it was a gift) until for Christmas I asked for “Jacaranda,” Josh Garrels’ newest album. A year ago I had never heard of him, but I was one of the lucky 700 that made it to PAPA Festival last summer, and Josh performed one of the nights. He was the only performer the entire week that was called back for an encore (besides the Psalters), and it’s simply because he is an unbelievable combination of lyricism, musical talent, and unique sound. Josh’s lyrics are penetrating, deeply penetrating, to the point of conviction and call to action. Yet, far from an individualized understanding of the Cross, his lyrics seem to combine the personal and global, the rich meanings of Christ for the whole world while movingly reminding us of a joyful, loving Messiah. His singing is more like spoken word poetry, because that’s what his lyrics are: poetry. And while he (quite uniquely) addresses and critiques issues of justice (”Zion and Babylon,” “Rejoice and Lament”), he also has songs that show the mystery of a creator through the beauty of life (Heron’s Wings is about his daughter). One of my favorites is “Rabbit and the Bear,” a creative, story-like reminder of the true freedom that comes in our Lion, very remeniscent of something C.S. Lewis might write.

My distaste for much music with “Christian” lyrics is that often it is either poorly written, lyrically or musically, and mostly absent of anything that encompasses a fuller understanding of the Gospel that includes our participation in the kingdom. This does all those things. His website (joshgarrels.com) has a lot of stuff of his on the main page to listen to. Others not on my CD that I love (but are on the webpage) are Joyful Boy and Break Bread Together. Here’s his encore at PAPA:

What to say

I can’t say what

I don’t know what

I don’t see what

I don’t feel(

What).

I only say what

You know what

You see what

You feel(

What).

What is what I can’t imagine

What is what I can’t conceive

What is what I work against

What is what I ought to be.

?

What is what is coming

What is what is here

What is what is possible

What is what can be?

.

I am is what.

I am not what.

What I am is is what I am becoming.

What I am becoming.