1 Cor 3 18-23 "Let no one deceive himself"
A few years ago I sat on the grass outside the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C. and for an hour studied a handout published by SOA Watch. It cited the deceased Senator of Georgia Paul Coverdell in his remarks facing the 2001 decision to close the School of the Americas and the proposed opening of the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation. He called the change merely "cosmetic". The bullet point of the sheet was making a point that although the name had changed, neither the curriculum nor the faculty had changed, and thus it proposed the slogan "new name, same shame."
I studied that sheet because I was about to witness against the SOA. I had less than ten days remaining before a symbolic direct action where I would enter the grounds of Ft. Benning and then face consequent federal charges of criminal trespassing. I felt a great weight. Though I knew the consequences of a conviction meant six months imprisonment, what daunted me at least as much, was a felt-sense of responsibility to represent the case against the SOA.
The very spiritual movement that led me toward that action, as I understand it now, came from the impelling spirit by which I resolved for action, faith-acting to bring my belief to bear light in the world. For Dr. King once said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that". I had read the Spanish-language manual given as supplement to foreign army students enrolled at the SOA in the 1980s and thus read the descriptions of torture taught as effective counter-insurgency tactics. By way of first-hand accounts of survivors from the civil war in El Salvador, I came to believe that torture was a regular instrument used by the government-backed "death squads". As compelling as it was to learn that peasants with no guilt of criminality suffered such horrific measures of control, even more gruesome to me were lessons that not even members of the consecrated life were safe from torture.
In fact much evidence came to my attention that was of a theoretical kind, expressing notions about salvation, and the meaning of persecution. In other words, I encountered new terrains of faith, accounts of Christ, testimony from a tradition of community-based circles of theological reflection. From within this source-bed of faith-knowledge particular authorities included Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero and Ignacio Ellacuria, SJ--both assassinated faith leaders long established by popular acclaim as saints of the crucified people. With such knowledge in tow, in 2003, I attended a protest at Ft. Benning. 83 would symbolically "cross the line" that year to witness against torture. I hung back, though I wanted to cross as well, waiting for reasons of faith.
But my supposed reasons of faith could have been self-deception. Who was I to cross? I saw people of many ages and many vowed religious but for lack of trust in my own call, it appeared to me that I could not class myself with such committed activists. I had plans to graduate the following spring. Then I was considering a year of community and service with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Only a few weeks earlier the application arrived and when I read the question "How would your peers describe your faith?" I buckled with self-doubt, wondering if they could call me a confessing Catholic. Surely, I told myself at Ft. Benning, sure I believe in the importance of witnessing against the SOA, but first and foremost I need to gain a reputation as a person of faith. Then my witness will have credibility, I reasoned.
St. Augustine once said, "O Lord, make me chaste, but not yet." Similarly, I experienced the gap between the call of discipleship and the self-deception of the disciple, in wanting to partake in a symbolic action but delaying my commitment. Prudence often dictates caution, yet the even the simple can communicate the wisdom of God, and I doubted that the grace of God would not support me to make witness. I negotiated with God for time, like Augustine. He could not embrace the radical Christian commitment and neither could I. To this day, a similar motive from that period motivates me to conform myself more to the mind of Christ. Ultimately the journey in Christ means a richer return in solidarity with the crucified so that conformity with Christ is pursued in hopes of bringing along with me a larger crowd of the faithful. Yet how to be on guard, I wonder. Will self-deception try to prevent me from my goal of shrinking the gap between the lessons of Christ and the obedient follower?
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Lk 4:38-44 "And she got up and waited on them."
My sister waits tables in LA. It's a common story--the part, the role, the tv show, how will they all combine magically with the person who wants it?--only in this one, my sister dates the actor. He and I met for the first time during our family vacation. My parents came down from Seattle and I flew in from Chicago, met them at the airport and we drove the rental van to get Case and Travis. We shared space for three days on our roadtrip North to Monterey Bay. The beauty of the trip was as much outside the van as we sped along route one, cruising Big Sur precipices, as it was interior watching the dynamic of our family expand by another degree to incorporate the person of Travis. It was whenever we ate a meal at a restaurant that I watched them step into a role of authority, experts on the art of attending--waiter/waitressing.
Down the road from Carmel, Mom suddenly seized up. "Where's my credit card?" It turned out after much rummaging about, that by a process of elimination she must have left it in the restaurant. Case spoke up, suddenly clairavoiant. You left it at the cafe. The waitress had returned it to you wrapped in the receipt. She explained that for this very reason she never envelopes a customer's credit card in the receipt.
Small wonder.
The Gospel story shows Jesus attending to the mother of Peter. She is healed. She rises and immediately begins to wait on the needs of the disciples.
My sister has experience about the finer points of waiting tables. I wonder if she would find appealing this depiction of Jesus the waiter and the corresponding portrait of the healed qua waitress. To often the cultural depiction of the waiter shows us someone striving for someone else. The job is a day job, but not all. The question is posed, aggressively I think, what else does the waiter do? Perhaps we can't even escape this when we speak about the action of Jesus' attention/Peters mother's attention as a metaphor. That is, their action must not simply mean: go wait tables. We who crave the spiritual and the symbolic seek the application to something further and beyond. Yet try to stay for a moment in the plain sense of the word for today, sometimes the only way to get our attention--in the flesh--As Paul writes, "I speak to you not in the spirit" (1 Cor 3). Then what?
Attend, notice, serve the needs of our neighbors. Peter's mother exemplifies discipleship when her acts of hospitality correspond to the healing she received from Jesus. Suppose we take the part in this gospel as waiter and walk about in our lives ready to serve. Would you like some affection with that? Can I make your day? Do you know that my compliment also comes in the form of an act of service? Sometimes I find myself stuck in one language of love (touch, gift, affirmation, act of service) and need to find creative ways to communicate in another language of love. Just for today I'll try...
My sister waits tables in LA. It's a common story--the part, the role, the tv show, how will they all combine magically with the person who wants it?--only in this one, my sister dates the actor. He and I met for the first time during our family vacation. My parents came down from Seattle and I flew in from Chicago, met them at the airport and we drove the rental van to get Case and Travis. We shared space for three days on our roadtrip North to Monterey Bay. The beauty of the trip was as much outside the van as we sped along route one, cruising Big Sur precipices, as it was interior watching the dynamic of our family expand by another degree to incorporate the person of Travis. It was whenever we ate a meal at a restaurant that I watched them step into a role of authority, experts on the art of attending--waiter/waitressing.
Down the road from Carmel, Mom suddenly seized up. "Where's my credit card?" It turned out after much rummaging about, that by a process of elimination she must have left it in the restaurant. Case spoke up, suddenly clairavoiant. You left it at the cafe. The waitress had returned it to you wrapped in the receipt. She explained that for this very reason she never envelopes a customer's credit card in the receipt.
Small wonder.
The Gospel story shows Jesus attending to the mother of Peter. She is healed. She rises and immediately begins to wait on the needs of the disciples.
My sister has experience about the finer points of waiting tables. I wonder if she would find appealing this depiction of Jesus the waiter and the corresponding portrait of the healed qua waitress. To often the cultural depiction of the waiter shows us someone striving for someone else. The job is a day job, but not all. The question is posed, aggressively I think, what else does the waiter do? Perhaps we can't even escape this when we speak about the action of Jesus' attention/Peters mother's attention as a metaphor. That is, their action must not simply mean: go wait tables. We who crave the spiritual and the symbolic seek the application to something further and beyond. Yet try to stay for a moment in the plain sense of the word for today, sometimes the only way to get our attention--in the flesh--As Paul writes, "I speak to you not in the spirit" (1 Cor 3). Then what?
Attend, notice, serve the needs of our neighbors. Peter's mother exemplifies discipleship when her acts of hospitality correspond to the healing she received from Jesus. Suppose we take the part in this gospel as waiter and walk about in our lives ready to serve. Would you like some affection with that? Can I make your day? Do you know that my compliment also comes in the form of an act of service? Sometimes I find myself stuck in one language of love (touch, gift, affirmation, act of service) and need to find creative ways to communicate in another language of love. Just for today I'll try...
Sunday, September 2, 2012
On the Corner of 1st and Bowrey
A Chase bank is now in business on the corner of 1st and Bowrey. Five years ago a last ditch effort from the community to fundraise for the sky high taxes flopped, and with it perished all but the memories of the sixties and seventies, as remembered in their glory at the BCBG club. It was a place frequented in their turn by all the big rock and punk bands of the era, from the Beattles to Bowie, the Rolling Stones and eventually the Beastie Boys. The stars flocked to the sound of fame. But as likely as it was to see a phenom like Andy Warhol, so was the chance of watching a surreptitious drug dose of heroin, or someone gone off LSD and another snorting lines of cocaine. The black and white interior was a hieroglyphic text of band posters; poles and prop stages, balconies and lower deck bars, hidden corners, all blinking lit by a medley of colored lights hung above like sugar crystals on a thread. But according to the better business bureau of New York City, by the mid 2000s the BCBG club had become a blemish on a gentrified neighborhood. Like a burnt out meth-head all the smile had rotten from its days of glory.
Marie and I passed by the corner of 1st and Bowrey, just a few blocks from the Catholic Worker. It amazes me that the Worker outlives such a club, when it too must face similar pressures. I can't help a comparison based on a survivor-of-the-fittest schema. The works of mercy versus the fads and fashion of pop culture is a comparison, however, that all but misses the point. Chase bank now replaces an iconic center of art.
In Mark's Gospel Jesus chastizes the scribes and pharisees "You hypocrites" who mistake what defiles. It is not what enters the body that defiles, but what defiles comes from within (Mk 7). At first and Bowrey the existence of Chase bank represents a tombstone over creativity. If we find our own spirit of hope new sites of empowerment, discovery, rejuvenation--these will arise again! Perhaps Jesus fears that we too easily give way to powerholders. I am like a scribe when I passively assume nothing I say can make a difference. Do I not profess a belief in the almighty and eternal Creator God? If I walk in the ways of mercy and justice is not God my source of holy love? Only a hypocrite pretends to obey God, while giving all credibility, all direction and trust to the right of way of Banks. The one currency we place our trust in, like the BCBG club, like the Worker, is love, that punk rock raw hand, that harsh and dreadful sound.
Marie and I passed by the corner of 1st and Bowrey, just a few blocks from the Catholic Worker. It amazes me that the Worker outlives such a club, when it too must face similar pressures. I can't help a comparison based on a survivor-of-the-fittest schema. The works of mercy versus the fads and fashion of pop culture is a comparison, however, that all but misses the point. Chase bank now replaces an iconic center of art.
In Mark's Gospel Jesus chastizes the scribes and pharisees "You hypocrites" who mistake what defiles. It is not what enters the body that defiles, but what defiles comes from within (Mk 7). At first and Bowrey the existence of Chase bank represents a tombstone over creativity. If we find our own spirit of hope new sites of empowerment, discovery, rejuvenation--these will arise again! Perhaps Jesus fears that we too easily give way to powerholders. I am like a scribe when I passively assume nothing I say can make a difference. Do I not profess a belief in the almighty and eternal Creator God? If I walk in the ways of mercy and justice is not God my source of holy love? Only a hypocrite pretends to obey God, while giving all credibility, all direction and trust to the right of way of Banks. The one currency we place our trust in, like the BCBG club, like the Worker, is love, that punk rock raw hand, that harsh and dreadful sound.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Multiplying Talent
Mt 25:14-30 The master and servants of this parable engage in a relation where relationship is a matter of talents and the relationship preferred is of abundance. "Master, knowing you reap where you did not sow" says the lowliest servant, "here is the talent you gave me."
The problem with talent today is that gap, the economic gap between rich and poor. Talent today remains a matter of money just as it did when Jesus told the parable. The measure of a relationship continues to measure in terms of economic viability. Jesus and his parable address the standard of money and profit, gain and loss, responsibility in the eyes of God.
Today my friends and I gather in New York City for a wedding. Theirs is a relationship of love rather than a business relationship. We read the story today in the context of the ceremony and in the vision of the Catholic Worker which brought Amy and Ted together.
According to the aims and means of the Catholic Worker, interpreted, discussed, laicized, boiled down, love and only love is the answer. Community corrects pride, heals hurts, restores divisions, invents alternatives, breeds relationships and fosters love. Thus one pretty day our friends shared their time and talent. It was a day of retreat, a time of preparation. They met in the labor of protest, that organizing aspect of love where intention is purified and hearts and minds find harmony, when the genius of love takes ferment. They met to plan out a witness against torture.
Today we remember what brought Amy and Ted together. It was the talent God gave them, deep desires to implement justice, skills to craft message and contemplate true community. God held designs for love and our ceremony attests to the fact that Amy and Ted have understood. Like good and faithful servants that double down, so has their commitment rooted in the vision of the Catholic Worker.
It was not a simple emotion when we said goodbye to Amy from the White Rose Catholic Worker. We knew she would join Mary House in NYC. We knew she had envisioned the step for some time and we knew of the blooming love with a worker there, and Teddy had visited us and won our hearts. It was our craft retreat that he had joined; he brought with him materials to assemble, a kind of history of Mary House, clippings from the Worker newspaper from years and decades past--a collection of "What's going on in the house". Amy, as Ted well understood, is first and foremost an observer. Her talent of observation is uncanny, you may not detect it if you don't know her, but her knack for being the devil's advocate…can make her invisible. Ted knew how to let her have an edge, the lens of history. This is the hospitality of heart we sensed in him.
Customs, exchanges, these mean less to Catholic Workers than professions of love, declarations of peace, harmony, simple acts of kindness, bread for the hungry, blood on a bomb. The ceremony of Ted and Amy reminds us of the preferential simplicity, of the servant who said, "here is the talent". Their love for the poor has brought them together in acts of hospitality for such as these. Every day they can say, we have welcomed the stranger servant, the shy, the fearful, the homeless. I think a life like theirs will forever model a gift of abundance.
Amen.
The problem with talent today is that gap, the economic gap between rich and poor. Talent today remains a matter of money just as it did when Jesus told the parable. The measure of a relationship continues to measure in terms of economic viability. Jesus and his parable address the standard of money and profit, gain and loss, responsibility in the eyes of God.
Today my friends and I gather in New York City for a wedding. Theirs is a relationship of love rather than a business relationship. We read the story today in the context of the ceremony and in the vision of the Catholic Worker which brought Amy and Ted together.
According to the aims and means of the Catholic Worker, interpreted, discussed, laicized, boiled down, love and only love is the answer. Community corrects pride, heals hurts, restores divisions, invents alternatives, breeds relationships and fosters love. Thus one pretty day our friends shared their time and talent. It was a day of retreat, a time of preparation. They met in the labor of protest, that organizing aspect of love where intention is purified and hearts and minds find harmony, when the genius of love takes ferment. They met to plan out a witness against torture.
Today we remember what brought Amy and Ted together. It was the talent God gave them, deep desires to implement justice, skills to craft message and contemplate true community. God held designs for love and our ceremony attests to the fact that Amy and Ted have understood. Like good and faithful servants that double down, so has their commitment rooted in the vision of the Catholic Worker.
It was not a simple emotion when we said goodbye to Amy from the White Rose Catholic Worker. We knew she would join Mary House in NYC. We knew she had envisioned the step for some time and we knew of the blooming love with a worker there, and Teddy had visited us and won our hearts. It was our craft retreat that he had joined; he brought with him materials to assemble, a kind of history of Mary House, clippings from the Worker newspaper from years and decades past--a collection of "What's going on in the house". Amy, as Ted well understood, is first and foremost an observer. Her talent of observation is uncanny, you may not detect it if you don't know her, but her knack for being the devil's advocate…can make her invisible. Ted knew how to let her have an edge, the lens of history. This is the hospitality of heart we sensed in him.
Customs, exchanges, these mean less to Catholic Workers than professions of love, declarations of peace, harmony, simple acts of kindness, bread for the hungry, blood on a bomb. The ceremony of Ted and Amy reminds us of the preferential simplicity, of the servant who said, "here is the talent". Their love for the poor has brought them together in acts of hospitality for such as these. Every day they can say, we have welcomed the stranger servant, the shy, the fearful, the homeless. I think a life like theirs will forever model a gift of abundance.
Amen.
Announcing a New Place
Previous on this blog I wrote how I endeavored to end torture at the School of the America's protest (SOA Watch). I discontinued the blog because I had to serve a six-month sentence for my act of conscience. Anne, a friend who followed me during that journey, posted excerpts of letters on two blogs (http://thegenesisletters.blogspot.com/ and http://jailhousegenesis.blogspot.com/) Now I pick up the Guest-Host as a site to share updates of a new kind.
I move to Boston.
Please follow my journey.
I move to Boston.
Please follow my journey.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)