-saturday night-
stepping outside that saturday night
was like stepping out into Good Friday
with no resurrection in sight.
blood like baptism
and hands in supplication
and too many things broken
with one sharp cry.
she looks like jesus,
right after the crown of thorns.
i shouldn't be telling you this,
but i don't know what else to do.
i look up for help,
some sort of divine assistance
but the rooftop angels
are all made of stone
and just look down at me,
with their blank, stoney gazes,
let me know that they also think
i'm not doing enough.
and there are few times in my life
when i haven't been able to find You in a moment.
this is one of them.
why does it feel like, sometimes,
You leave your children to fend for themselves?
when You leave us,
all our choices are tinged with darkness
and it feels like we're choking on the ashes
of all our violent burnt offerings.
from here on out,
i will not accept easy answers,
least of all from You,
who created all the answers
and all the pathways.
You, who created the blood
and the bones
and the baseball bats
and the cries
and the grief.
I don't like to make demands,
least of all to You,
but I'm asking you to show yourself.
Or I'll walk out that door,
into that Good Friday,
whether or not the Resurrection ever shows up...
Friday, October 29, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
...that saved a wretch like me...
there are times here when the sheer magnitude and depth of violence, in myself and in the world around me, threatens to knock me over.
on monday, october 11th, violence came to my neighborhood in the form of a gruesome, troubling domestic violence murder/suicide. the details are so awful that even hearing about them is traumatizing. but this shooting took place on a sunny Monday afternoon, which guaranteed that people (including children) witnessed it.
i waded through police cars an hour or so after the incident to check on my favorite baristas, whose cafe was surrounded by yellow tape. they were physically fine but emotionally troubled, like any decent person would be. i told them i'd be thinking good thoughts for them (which is my way of praying for hipsters and atheists without them knowing).
as i walked home, i started to think more about violence. it was also Columbus Day and National Coming Out Day. it was the day before i returned to my internship, where violence is relatively prevalent. i was coming off of two weeks where violence seemed to define my relationship to others and all my prayers seemed soaked in its effects on me and others. so i started thinking about how complacent i'd become to violence. it took something so unbelievably heinous to help me remember that, when people in my community die, it affects EVERYONE. on that monday, one person made a horrible, horrible choice. and that choice rippled outward, in terrible concentric circles of disaster. and since the person who made that choice was gone, everyone was left to make meaning on their own. and that didn't seem right.
and while i was walking and thinking, i felt this voice say that the place where this violence happened ought to be remembered. and that i needed to do something. which is, frankly, crazy. and even crazier is the fact that i deeply felt that what i needed to do was gather people to pray there. pray. in public. at a murder site. and ask people i know to join me. even typing it seems a little ridiculous. i figured people would laugh. or think i was crazy. or, worse, thinking i was being disrespectful of what happened.
but, by the time i got home, i was resolved that, even if i did it myself, i was supposed to be out there praying. so, from 6pm-8pm, i texted and facebooked and tried to figure out what to say to whomever might show up. and i tried not to imagine that this choice might make all my friends think i was nuts.
at 8:15ish, we had a small but wonderful group. most of them were people i knew who'd come because they value nonviolence. and community. and me, i realized, which is just so strange sometimes...these amazing, beautiful, wonderful people choose to be in my life. it's humbling in the extreme. in addition to my friends, we had a community pastor show up. and, most humbling of all and the greatest gift of the Spirit, our little band of folks with a candle and some flowers attracted the notice of woman who had witnessed the violence earlier. she came into our circle and felt safe enough to share her hurt and her horror. being able to pour out love and kindness on her felt like exactly what i'd wanted to do. in fact, even though the whole gathering was brief, i felt more connected to the Holy Spirit than i ever have before.
i try to live my life in a way that recognizes that community builds great things. or, as my Catholic Worker friends are fond of saying, community answers the question "what can we do together that we cannot do alone?" but, so often, i forget the true amazing grace of community. but the small community that formed that night grew something that has had some amazing effects. we helped someone deal with trauma. new relationships grew, for me, out of that day. even the owners of the apartment building, who weren't interested in having us on their property and were pretty dismissive, started letting others leave flowers. an altar of flowers lives out there now, including the ones our group brought.
it's not the hugest thing i've done and, in the face of such magnitude of violence, i don't want to get too comfortable with my response. i could always do more. but i guess that's the biggest thing to grow out of that day - i now desire to do more. i desire it so much and i'm trying to orient my life so that that desire - for the Holy Spirit of nonviolence and for my life to be a daily response to the violence before me - is the animating force of my life. i'm failing more than succeeding, but that's why we have access to infinite grace, i suppose.
please pray for me (or think good thoughts) as i try to discern what a daily response to violence looks like, and how i am meant to answer the radical call of the Holy Spirit. The Lord knows I can use all the help i can get...
on monday, october 11th, violence came to my neighborhood in the form of a gruesome, troubling domestic violence murder/suicide. the details are so awful that even hearing about them is traumatizing. but this shooting took place on a sunny Monday afternoon, which guaranteed that people (including children) witnessed it.
i waded through police cars an hour or so after the incident to check on my favorite baristas, whose cafe was surrounded by yellow tape. they were physically fine but emotionally troubled, like any decent person would be. i told them i'd be thinking good thoughts for them (which is my way of praying for hipsters and atheists without them knowing).
as i walked home, i started to think more about violence. it was also Columbus Day and National Coming Out Day. it was the day before i returned to my internship, where violence is relatively prevalent. i was coming off of two weeks where violence seemed to define my relationship to others and all my prayers seemed soaked in its effects on me and others. so i started thinking about how complacent i'd become to violence. it took something so unbelievably heinous to help me remember that, when people in my community die, it affects EVERYONE. on that monday, one person made a horrible, horrible choice. and that choice rippled outward, in terrible concentric circles of disaster. and since the person who made that choice was gone, everyone was left to make meaning on their own. and that didn't seem right.
and while i was walking and thinking, i felt this voice say that the place where this violence happened ought to be remembered. and that i needed to do something. which is, frankly, crazy. and even crazier is the fact that i deeply felt that what i needed to do was gather people to pray there. pray. in public. at a murder site. and ask people i know to join me. even typing it seems a little ridiculous. i figured people would laugh. or think i was crazy. or, worse, thinking i was being disrespectful of what happened.
but, by the time i got home, i was resolved that, even if i did it myself, i was supposed to be out there praying. so, from 6pm-8pm, i texted and facebooked and tried to figure out what to say to whomever might show up. and i tried not to imagine that this choice might make all my friends think i was nuts.
at 8:15ish, we had a small but wonderful group. most of them were people i knew who'd come because they value nonviolence. and community. and me, i realized, which is just so strange sometimes...these amazing, beautiful, wonderful people choose to be in my life. it's humbling in the extreme. in addition to my friends, we had a community pastor show up. and, most humbling of all and the greatest gift of the Spirit, our little band of folks with a candle and some flowers attracted the notice of woman who had witnessed the violence earlier. she came into our circle and felt safe enough to share her hurt and her horror. being able to pour out love and kindness on her felt like exactly what i'd wanted to do. in fact, even though the whole gathering was brief, i felt more connected to the Holy Spirit than i ever have before.
i try to live my life in a way that recognizes that community builds great things. or, as my Catholic Worker friends are fond of saying, community answers the question "what can we do together that we cannot do alone?" but, so often, i forget the true amazing grace of community. but the small community that formed that night grew something that has had some amazing effects. we helped someone deal with trauma. new relationships grew, for me, out of that day. even the owners of the apartment building, who weren't interested in having us on their property and were pretty dismissive, started letting others leave flowers. an altar of flowers lives out there now, including the ones our group brought.
it's not the hugest thing i've done and, in the face of such magnitude of violence, i don't want to get too comfortable with my response. i could always do more. but i guess that's the biggest thing to grow out of that day - i now desire to do more. i desire it so much and i'm trying to orient my life so that that desire - for the Holy Spirit of nonviolence and for my life to be a daily response to the violence before me - is the animating force of my life. i'm failing more than succeeding, but that's why we have access to infinite grace, i suppose.
please pray for me (or think good thoughts) as i try to discern what a daily response to violence looks like, and how i am meant to answer the radical call of the Holy Spirit. The Lord knows I can use all the help i can get...
Friday, September 10, 2010
the busy-ness of bees...
it's probably a very good thing that i've been too busy to blog these days, but it's also been hard since, as per usual, i have a lot to say.
this summer (and the beginning of this school year) have brought some radical shifts in life, perception, and spiritual growth.
life in community has been more challenging and more wonderful than i'd expected. i live with people i truly adore and we function, in our best times, as a well-ordered machine. and, in our worst times, we function just like any other fake-family might. i was drawn to community, in part, because i wanted to challenge myself in my interpersonal relationship skills. coming face-to-face with my own brokenness, my tendency towards judgement, and other completely irritating qualities has been hard. having those lovingly exposed and just as lovingly explored has been humbling in the extreme.
i've also begun an internship that i love. i actually (for the first time) can call it life-changing without any fear of hyperbole. i spend my days working with teens who are trying to change the culture of their school through nonviolent conflict resolution and restorative justice. these teens, having seen violence in their peers AND in the adults around them, are trying to make things right. and it works sometimes, and it doesn't others. but it's such incredibly important work being done by some truly amazing individuals.
the school where i work is by far not the worst in Chicago (nor even the worst on the northside of Chicago). but dropouts are high, college-attendance is low, and there is a police booking station inside the school. we've seen young kids taken out of the school in handcuffs or locked in a room until the police arrive. fights break out in classrooms and no one knows how to intervene. rival gang members show up with weapons and jump kids after school. and all of that leads some members of this community to blame and fear youth, instead of asking youth what the solutions might be. i love that i work with an organization that thinks youth voices are just as important as ours. but this work reminds me daily that i am not in the Great White North, as it were. the effects of violence and oppression in the lives of these youth is already apparent two weeks into this internship. I'm sure it will increase as I continue this work, which means that the potential for heartbreak and fear and my own oppression and stereotypes to surface is HIGH. i'm glad for that opportunity but also very afraid.
because i live in a community that provides spiritual support on a regular basis, and because my work and heart are turned more towards violence than before, i find my prayer life shifting, which is a welcome relief. for so long, my prayers had been small, inward, mostly-selfish prayers about the future. "give me this" "help me understand that" "why don't You..."
it was my turn to lead our spirituality morning (at 7am. THAT'S how much i love my community!) and i decided to do lectio divina on Matthew 6:25-34. it provided a much-needed re-orientation of my prayer life. i decided to stop focusing so much on this area of future that i can't control (namely, romantic relationships and having kiddos) to focus on those larger issues i can control, like whether i do enough to love my neighbor each day. actually, without knowing it, my communitymate John helped me immensely. in reflecting on this reading, he noted that there were people who were suffering that "God wants to help." I was struck immediately by the fact that all those people who suffer for want of food, clothing, etc. do so because, very literally, human institutions are blocking the love of God. every unjust policy, every deeply-rooted fear and hatred of "the other", every unnecessary consumer good i buy, every dollar i could donate but don't- all these things build impenetrable walls that keep out the love of God. this is all stuff i knew intellectually, of course. but picturing a wall every time i see oppression or feel it in myself is a totally different, more heart-centered perspective, which has really helped me evaluate how i live my values, and how i don't.
i've also been working at discovering things that give me not just a spiritual "high" but that awaken that deep-in-my-bones contentedness. i spent so long expecting that the love of God would be like lightning. but it's more like Portland fall rains when you're inside, warm and safe. it's a much, much better place to be, though i'm sure i'll need lightning again soon...
this summer (and the beginning of this school year) have brought some radical shifts in life, perception, and spiritual growth.
life in community has been more challenging and more wonderful than i'd expected. i live with people i truly adore and we function, in our best times, as a well-ordered machine. and, in our worst times, we function just like any other fake-family might. i was drawn to community, in part, because i wanted to challenge myself in my interpersonal relationship skills. coming face-to-face with my own brokenness, my tendency towards judgement, and other completely irritating qualities has been hard. having those lovingly exposed and just as lovingly explored has been humbling in the extreme.
i've also begun an internship that i love. i actually (for the first time) can call it life-changing without any fear of hyperbole. i spend my days working with teens who are trying to change the culture of their school through nonviolent conflict resolution and restorative justice. these teens, having seen violence in their peers AND in the adults around them, are trying to make things right. and it works sometimes, and it doesn't others. but it's such incredibly important work being done by some truly amazing individuals.
the school where i work is by far not the worst in Chicago (nor even the worst on the northside of Chicago). but dropouts are high, college-attendance is low, and there is a police booking station inside the school. we've seen young kids taken out of the school in handcuffs or locked in a room until the police arrive. fights break out in classrooms and no one knows how to intervene. rival gang members show up with weapons and jump kids after school. and all of that leads some members of this community to blame and fear youth, instead of asking youth what the solutions might be. i love that i work with an organization that thinks youth voices are just as important as ours. but this work reminds me daily that i am not in the Great White North, as it were. the effects of violence and oppression in the lives of these youth is already apparent two weeks into this internship. I'm sure it will increase as I continue this work, which means that the potential for heartbreak and fear and my own oppression and stereotypes to surface is HIGH. i'm glad for that opportunity but also very afraid.
because i live in a community that provides spiritual support on a regular basis, and because my work and heart are turned more towards violence than before, i find my prayer life shifting, which is a welcome relief. for so long, my prayers had been small, inward, mostly-selfish prayers about the future. "give me this" "help me understand that" "why don't You..."
it was my turn to lead our spirituality morning (at 7am. THAT'S how much i love my community!) and i decided to do lectio divina on Matthew 6:25-34. it provided a much-needed re-orientation of my prayer life. i decided to stop focusing so much on this area of future that i can't control (namely, romantic relationships and having kiddos) to focus on those larger issues i can control, like whether i do enough to love my neighbor each day. actually, without knowing it, my communitymate John helped me immensely. in reflecting on this reading, he noted that there were people who were suffering that "God wants to help." I was struck immediately by the fact that all those people who suffer for want of food, clothing, etc. do so because, very literally, human institutions are blocking the love of God. every unjust policy, every deeply-rooted fear and hatred of "the other", every unnecessary consumer good i buy, every dollar i could donate but don't- all these things build impenetrable walls that keep out the love of God. this is all stuff i knew intellectually, of course. but picturing a wall every time i see oppression or feel it in myself is a totally different, more heart-centered perspective, which has really helped me evaluate how i live my values, and how i don't.
i've also been working at discovering things that give me not just a spiritual "high" but that awaken that deep-in-my-bones contentedness. i spent so long expecting that the love of God would be like lightning. but it's more like Portland fall rains when you're inside, warm and safe. it's a much, much better place to be, though i'm sure i'll need lightning again soon...
Thursday, July 8, 2010
a blogging first...
my dear friend Susan, of Musings of a Discerning Woman fame, just nominated me for a Blog with Substance Award!(also, visit Susan's blog. She's one of the raddest folks ever and her postings on her order, Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, are a glimpse into a pretty amazing group of women!)
Anyhoo, apparently I've been asked to sum up my blogging philosophy in five words. which is easy, since i'm pretty sure i don't have one. but if i did, it would probably be: "words about God, life, & self-doubt"
also, i am also going to link to blogs which i feel are substantial, so here goes:
my dear friend amy has a rad blog and can be found at Amy the Show. Check it out if you are interested in well-written reflections on Catholic Workers, God, and other interesting things.
Our Kairos Chicago community is full of amazing people and I feel like everyone should get to know them! Find them at A Fire That Lights Other Fires
Have I told you I have an amazing sister, whose writing will make you both laugh and cry, often simultaneously? Well, I do, and she can be found blogging at both This Is My Catholicism AND The Jesus Plays
Lastly, Sign on the Window is the blog of Melissa, who is connected to the L'Arche Nehalem community in Portland. Her reflections on church, folks with developmental disabilities, and parenting always give me a lot of food for thought.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
"america never was america to me"
aware of the immense privileges granted to me just by virtue of being born in these borders, and not others, and with this skin, and not another, i can no longer really "celebrate" this nation. what i can do is celebrate the brave people in, committed to making it better and more inclusive. and i can thank God for poets like Langston Hughes who have called out the lie that America is a great nation for all...
Let America Be America Again
-by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
Let America Be America Again
-by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
3 poems from the border...
i'm a little more raw than expected and not able to completely explain my experience yet. but i did have 3 spoken word pieces that came out of my time in Arizona and I thought I'd share 2 of them.
*******************
-hands full of baptism-
the only radio stations you get
this deep in the desert
play Christian & ranchera music, respectively.
floating through the airwaves are stories of redemption
grace,
& love,
both heavenly & earthly.
but only half of them make any sense to me.
sleeping in a desert that's always moving,
yet always quiet,
i only understand half the stories anyways.
the barriers here are unintelligible.
this great nation has woven intricate borders
between us
made of language & idealogy & money & hate
& sealed with barbed wire & promises.
it catches at your heart & keeps you stuck,
like some man-made desert plant
that needs ugly soil to grow.
give me the honest desert,
the space between borders,
where time slips away
& you're not entirely sure
who you are
or
where you've come from.
i want to leave
the land of beer & honey
for a space
where water baptizes survivors & victims alike
& where we remember our dead
in places as everlasting as mountains,
& just as beautiful.
let us not run from the harshness.
let us bleach our souls in the desert sun
until our ragged hearts are clean.
let us walk without stopping
into a land which doesn't belong to us alone
but which contains our ancestors
our friends
our enemies
our future,
a land where the sun beats down
on the just & unjust.
let us step out of the shadows
with dirty faces,
bleached hearts,
& hands full of baptism.
stepping out into the harsh light of truth,
we look like a busted-up army of seekers.
nobody knows we've got a map on our body
that says where we are & where we're headed together.
all we have to do is face the rising sun
to find our brothers & sisters
& ignore every border we see.
from there, we will tell our stories into the air,
until they form a song all their own,
more beautiful than any airwaves could capture,
& more lasting.
**************************
-what i can say when i don't speak your language-
here's a list of things i can say in Spanish:
heart,
love,
water,
revolution,
mercy,
left,
right,
eat,
be,
table,
i'm sorry,
ice cream,
police.
compared to the way words trip off my tongue,
these confines are immense
& reduce me to child-like sentences
& chaplin-esque hand gestures.
but when i look again,
i can say a lot
of what i to tell you,
stuck as you are,
between your world & mine.
i can say:
"i'm sorry."
"your heart is right where you left it."
"feed your revolution with love & food & mercy & water
& leave everything else to la migra.
they're bound to take it anyways."
looking at it that way,
it's all the vocabulary i'll ever need.
*******************
-hands full of baptism-
the only radio stations you get
this deep in the desert
play Christian & ranchera music, respectively.
floating through the airwaves are stories of redemption
grace,
& love,
both heavenly & earthly.
but only half of them make any sense to me.
sleeping in a desert that's always moving,
yet always quiet,
i only understand half the stories anyways.
the barriers here are unintelligible.
this great nation has woven intricate borders
between us
made of language & idealogy & money & hate
& sealed with barbed wire & promises.
it catches at your heart & keeps you stuck,
like some man-made desert plant
that needs ugly soil to grow.
give me the honest desert,
the space between borders,
where time slips away
& you're not entirely sure
who you are
or
where you've come from.
i want to leave
the land of beer & honey
for a space
where water baptizes survivors & victims alike
& where we remember our dead
in places as everlasting as mountains,
& just as beautiful.
let us not run from the harshness.
let us bleach our souls in the desert sun
until our ragged hearts are clean.
let us walk without stopping
into a land which doesn't belong to us alone
but which contains our ancestors
our friends
our enemies
our future,
a land where the sun beats down
on the just & unjust.
let us step out of the shadows
with dirty faces,
bleached hearts,
& hands full of baptism.
stepping out into the harsh light of truth,
we look like a busted-up army of seekers.
nobody knows we've got a map on our body
that says where we are & where we're headed together.
all we have to do is face the rising sun
to find our brothers & sisters
& ignore every border we see.
from there, we will tell our stories into the air,
until they form a song all their own,
more beautiful than any airwaves could capture,
& more lasting.
**************************
-what i can say when i don't speak your language-
here's a list of things i can say in Spanish:
heart,
love,
water,
revolution,
mercy,
left,
right,
eat,
be,
table,
i'm sorry,
ice cream,
police.
compared to the way words trip off my tongue,
these confines are immense
& reduce me to child-like sentences
& chaplin-esque hand gestures.
but when i look again,
i can say a lot
of what i to tell you,
stuck as you are,
between your world & mine.
i can say:
"i'm sorry."
"your heart is right where you left it."
"feed your revolution with love & food & mercy & water
& leave everything else to la migra.
they're bound to take it anyways."
looking at it that way,
it's all the vocabulary i'll ever need.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
electronic kairos
tonight i was trying to prepare something for the Kairos reflection tonight. while it ultimately devolved into a much more enjoyable night of feeding friends and chatting, i was glad for the time to reflect on the intersection of "ordinary" time and storytelling. it's been coalescing in my mind, as we head into Ordinary Time, that within all the work we do and the issues we address, story can sometimes get lost under fact and hyperbole and official excuses.
for example, i have been thinking, as i am sure many have, about the situation in Gaza. not only was there the needless deaths of those trying to get into Gaza with humanitarian aid, but there have been reported air raids into Gaza as well. All of these things are massively horrifying, but i found myself most moved and saddened and convicted by the first-person stories of what happened on the Freedom Flotilla. The first-person stories of what it was like on the boat contained some incredibly touching moments. It can be found here. those stories, while not eclipsing the broad picture of facts and strategies and solutions, throw into high relief the real cost of doing nothing. these people, with names and faces and a story to tell, narrowly avoided losing their lives. others didn't. thinking of these people - the ones who lived and the ones who died - moves me more than facts. i feel like that must be true for more than me.
in planning for the night, i found this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, which also helped me realize the beautiful power of story and the ordinary, even in the face of violence and oppression.
The Words Under the Words
(for Sitti Khadra, north of Jerusalem)
-Naomi Shihab Nye
My grandmother's hands recognize grapes,
the damp shine of a goat's new skin.
When I was sick they followed me,
I woke from the long fever to find them
covering my head like cool prayers.
My grandmother's days are made of bread,
a round pat-pat and the slow baking.
She waits by the oven watching a strange car
circle the streets. Maybe it holds her son,
lost to America. More often, tourists,
who kneel and weep at mysterious shrines.
She knows how often mail arrives,
how rarely there is a letter.
When one comes, she announces it, a miracle,
listening to it read again and again
in the dim evening light.
My grandmother's voice says nothing can surprise her.
Take her the shotgun wound and the crippled baby.
She knows the spaces we travel through,
the messages we cannot send-our voices are short
and would get lost on the journey.
Farewell to the husband's coat,
the ones she had loved and nourished,
who fly from her like seeds into a deep sky.
They will plant themselves. We will all die.
My grandmother's eyes say Allah is everywhere, even in death.
When she talks of the orchard and the new olive press,
when she tells the stories of Joha and his foolish wisdoms,
He is her first thought, what she really thinks of His name.
"Answer, if you hear the words under the words -
otherwise it is just a world with a lot of rough edges,
difficult to get through, and our pockets full of stones."
In this "ordinary" time, I'm committing to finding the story in the ordinary. This Sunday, we'll here again the very extraordinary way that our Savior performs the ordinary act of feeding people. There was a story there, but there's a story every time we feed people who need it. There are stories in the ordinary work we do. i want to commit to finding those stories, collecting them, and bringing them as presents to the One Who Writes Our Stories.
for example, i have been thinking, as i am sure many have, about the situation in Gaza. not only was there the needless deaths of those trying to get into Gaza with humanitarian aid, but there have been reported air raids into Gaza as well. All of these things are massively horrifying, but i found myself most moved and saddened and convicted by the first-person stories of what happened on the Freedom Flotilla. The first-person stories of what it was like on the boat contained some incredibly touching moments. It can be found here. those stories, while not eclipsing the broad picture of facts and strategies and solutions, throw into high relief the real cost of doing nothing. these people, with names and faces and a story to tell, narrowly avoided losing their lives. others didn't. thinking of these people - the ones who lived and the ones who died - moves me more than facts. i feel like that must be true for more than me.
in planning for the night, i found this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, which also helped me realize the beautiful power of story and the ordinary, even in the face of violence and oppression.
The Words Under the Words
(for Sitti Khadra, north of Jerusalem)
-Naomi Shihab Nye
My grandmother's hands recognize grapes,
the damp shine of a goat's new skin.
When I was sick they followed me,
I woke from the long fever to find them
covering my head like cool prayers.
My grandmother's days are made of bread,
a round pat-pat and the slow baking.
She waits by the oven watching a strange car
circle the streets. Maybe it holds her son,
lost to America. More often, tourists,
who kneel and weep at mysterious shrines.
She knows how often mail arrives,
how rarely there is a letter.
When one comes, she announces it, a miracle,
listening to it read again and again
in the dim evening light.
My grandmother's voice says nothing can surprise her.
Take her the shotgun wound and the crippled baby.
She knows the spaces we travel through,
the messages we cannot send-our voices are short
and would get lost on the journey.
Farewell to the husband's coat,
the ones she had loved and nourished,
who fly from her like seeds into a deep sky.
They will plant themselves. We will all die.
My grandmother's eyes say Allah is everywhere, even in death.
When she talks of the orchard and the new olive press,
when she tells the stories of Joha and his foolish wisdoms,
He is her first thought, what she really thinks of His name.
"Answer, if you hear the words under the words -
otherwise it is just a world with a lot of rough edges,
difficult to get through, and our pockets full of stones."
In this "ordinary" time, I'm committing to finding the story in the ordinary. This Sunday, we'll here again the very extraordinary way that our Savior performs the ordinary act of feeding people. There was a story there, but there's a story every time we feed people who need it. There are stories in the ordinary work we do. i want to commit to finding those stories, collecting them, and bringing them as presents to the One Who Writes Our Stories.
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