Notes from Border Immersion Day 2

On one of the border walls (because there are so many), construction was stopped because the contractor was using undocumented workers. Seriously.

On one of the border walls, it says:
“The cross of the migrant Jesus
Abused by the police
Betrayed by the coyotes
Persecuted by Border Patrol”

The Bible tells us to, “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” Is that what this is?

We met with some women from Chilpancingo.  The women are/were factory workers. They are made to take constant pregnancy tests and fired if they are found pregnant. They have clocks attached to a tie on their wrist, so if they leave their work station to go to the bathroom, they don’t get paid. Women wear diapers to work because of this.

10,000 families (families, not people) live in this shanty-town. It is being bull-dozed to make space for a canal.

The Passage of Time

Grandma and Grandpa

22 years ago today, my Grandfather died.

I woke up that morning to find my mother asleep on the couch.  She had not been there the night before; she’d gone to my grandparents’ house, as she had many nights, because Grandpa’s fever was high and it might be his last.  

My mom was asleep on the couch and my dad stood in front of the fireplace, watching her sleep.  He told us.  My mom is usually the one to do the “parenting,” especially the emotional stuff, but my dad took it that morning.  

We went to grandma and grandpa’s house.  Nothing felt real.  The absurdity of someone disappearing from your life– your mind and body resist it.  This isn’t real, our brain seems to tell us.  Almost every time this happens, it’s followed by waking up in my bed.  But death is the nightmare you don’t wake up from.

Everyone was there.  Wandering through the house like zombies, we looked at each other like broken dolls.  A strange smile– Hello, I am trying to comfort and I love you but the world isn’t real right now and are we really here?  

I went up to his bedroom, searching for the truth.  It’s as if I was daring the world to hit me.  Do it.  I dare you.  The hospital bed was gone.  It left a bright spot of plush carpet that was surrounded by a ring of worn carpet from visitors, family, and caretakers around his bed.

I stared at the bright spot of carpet and sat on my grandmother’s bed.  I looked in the mirror; my face was contorted and red and swollen and wet.  I could hear people looking for me, but I stayed there.  I stared at my reflection; it was the most real and artificial moment I have ever experienced.

Someone peeked through the doorway and found me.  They didn’t say anything and went back to the kitchen.  

Everyone tells you that death is hard. That love is hard.  That grief is hard.  

But they don’t tell you that it changes your life.  It breaks you in a way that makes you forever stronger and weaker, a spiritual wound like Jacob.  It’s make and break.  

After the funeral, when people silently stand around, committing themselves to carrying on the beautiful lights of those lost, we all quietly agree to become better people.

Twenty years later, I’ve found a way to make sweet honey out of pain.  Knowing how important John Kiely was to the world, I knew there were parts of him that I needed to carry forward.  20 years later, my life is changed.  

But I still wish that all of my begging with God had worked.  I still wish he were here.  I would still hold the secret and never tell a soul about the miracle, if only God would work it.  I can try to look on the bright side and see how a candle, held above, lights all below.  

But I just want to get closer and feel its warmth.

We Will Rise Again

"When [the Right Reverend Graham Leonard] was not able to prevent the celebration of this Eucharist [by a female deacon], his rhetoric became so excessive and his prejudice so obvious that he actually helped our cause. He attacked his dean, Elizabeth Canham, and me. He demanded that I “discipline Miss Canham.” I do not quite know what he expected me to do, but I was amused by his archaic language. When Bishop Leonard announced in the mid-1980s that “women could not be priests in the Anglican Communion because God had created them just to be wives and mothers,” I howled with delight. “These words,” I said in a prepared statement, “are spoken by the bishop of London in a land where Elizabeth II sits on the throne and where Margaret Thatcher runs the government. Perhaps the bishop of London does know know either what country he is living in or what century.”"

—

John Shelby Spong, in Here I Stand

If you’re sassy and you know it raise your hand

Vegetarianism and

NOTHING WILL BENEFIT HUMAN HEALTH AND INCREASE CHANCES FOR SURVIVAL OF LIFE ON EARTH AS MUCH AS THE EVOLUTION TO A VEGETARIAN DIET.
Albert Einstein

I worry that my enthusiasm for vegetarianism is perceived as judgmental. I think that any time someone says that something they do is RIGHT, it is perceived as though anything anyone else does to the contrary is WRONG. Seriously, almost everyone in my life eats meat and pretty much all of you I love and admire for various reasons. I never meant to imply that any of you are not good, moral people.

I do believe that veganism is the right thing to do. That said, I still eat eggs and dairy sometimes. It is a source of spiritual unrest for me and I hope that someday soon I will make the full switch.

There is a documentary called “Earthlings” that, even as a devout vegetarian, I have yet to watch. It’s called the “vegan-maker” and that’s exactly why I don’t want to watch it. I enjoy eating eggs. I enjoy community and family that surround meals. I enjoy normalcy and not having to defend my choices because they become painfully obvious about 3 times a day. I know that people think vegetarians and vegans are aggressive, but perhaps until you give up animal products (I have been pescatarian since about 2004, vegetarian since 2008, and I have been vegan every Lent since 2008) you understand little of what it takes. I get criticized a lot. I get defensive diatribes frequently, despite the fact that “in real life,” I almost never bring up my vegetarianism. Almost all of the time that I go into why I don’t eat meat is when I am being defensive because someone is trying to tell me how stupid I am or how I am fighting genetics or classist or something. Yes, cravings. I craved meat for a while and every so often something will make me think “wouldn’t that be nice?” When my dad makes his signature spaghetti sauce for our family gathering with out-of-state relatives who I see every few years, wouldn’t it be nice if I could enjoy that Eucharist-like meal with them? Wouldn’t it?

But as anyone who is remotely religious knows, once you know something in the core of your being, it stays there. I know Jesus existed and I know that his life changed the world. His unprecedented connection with God and the universe is unparalleled and beautiful in a way that still has ripple effects of spirit on my life today. His acts of radical inclusivity changed the paradigm of “love” and challenged each of us to widen our circles of compassion and consider our lives in a grander scheme, to understand how our own ripples effect the future in very real ways.

Proactive justice is real. I know so many people who are proactively orienting their lives on a trajectory of justice.

I know so many people who do few things in their day-to-day lives that constitute any kind of moral decision-making.

Both of these “categories” contain their passive elements. PASSIVE INJUSTICE is real, too. In the ways we forget to make room for our LGTBQ friends, for our friends of color, for our friends of differing abilities, for our friends of different genders and languages and cultures and ages and etc etc etc etc etc.

I truly believe that most of us commit most of the injustices of our lives in the ways that we spend our money. The classist, racist, sexist, genderist, homophobic, hateful people we give our money to by virtue of our spending habits, the industries we support and the things those industries do to strip us of our dignity and moral compass.

Follow the money.

Please please please, if you have any agency in the ways you spend money… I know not all of us have the luxury of choice. But if you DO. If you have enough money to buy coffee or eat out or buy clothing out of anything but need or eat out of anything but hunger….

Consider what your money supports.

If you eat animals, it likely supports inhumane treatment, genetic interference with species, torture, mistreatment of workers, environmental degradation, carbon emissions, and the decline of healthful bodies. If you have the ability to consider your spending habits and make choices about when and where from you buy things in a way that can improve the nature of your contribution, I pray that you will. I pray that I will.

I want my life to better this world, not hurt it.

Here ends my blasphemy of works over faith.

I am a form of awareness

So are you.

Border Immersion Day 1

Since issues on the border are dominating headlines, I want to share some of my experience in a border immersion trip I took with my church a few years back.



“I am your servant, O God. I live to do your will.”

Bring your whole self and open your whole self.

You live in a different world than everyone else and the same world as everyone else.

Struggle with the presence or absence of God.

“Mexico: so close to the United States but so far from God.”

Mexicans are the disposable people of the United States. They are not treated like other immigrant communities. After we welcome their workforce, we have pushed them out into the poverty of communities in Tijuana.

A story: San Diego police would go to a hotel in town and insist that the owner open its rooms and show people’s documents. They told the owner, “If you don’t, the next time you need us, we won’t come.” How is that good law enforcement?

Recently, a Puerto Rican was deported to Mexico because he didn’t have a passport. People are harassed because of how they look. Puerto Ricans are citizens!

Lest we get all upset that our stories are biased, the police department and Border Patrol will not send officers to speak at Centro Romero (the center we visited).

On the plus side, Police in San Ysidro are very quick on crime. It’s a safe place.

Each year, 85,000 to 90,000 victims of sexual trafficking come through Tijuana. Prostitution is illegal, but there is a Zone of Tolerance in the city. People pay $10,000 to $25,000 for young virgin girls. Girls are kidnapped or sold by their families. The U.S. is the second largest market for sexual trafficking. Germany is 1st.

I think to myself: Why did I get this life? There is no cosmic justice.

Your life is not good or bad because of anything deserved or undeserved. You can improve your life. You can hurt your life. You don’t control it any more than God.

God is what connects us. Not more or less. God will not make your life better or worse except to help you connect and feel connected to whatever world you live in an whichever people are surrounding you or your mind.

We watched a documentary called Maquilopolis which was about the factory workers, most of whom are women, in Tijuana. The factories pay them horrible wages, they work 6 12-hour days per week in poor conditions, and live in a shanty-town which is heavily polluted by the factories (against NAFTA policy). U.S. companies are supposed to dispose of waste outside of Mexico, but they simply dump it in the water supply.

NAFTA made it hard for Mexico to compete with the larger global sources of agriculture. Since Mexico was a primarily agricultural country, many of its citizens lost their jobs as a result of NAFTA. The Tratador de Guadalupe also led many legal workers to be pushed out of the US and displaced them in the border region of Mexico. This is a reason that the maquiladoras rose in the border region.

NAFTA violated the Mexican Constitution (mandated its change); the Mexican Constitution guaranteed land ownership to Mexicans. No foreigners could own land before NAFTA.

The Mexican government doesn’t care/likes illegal immigration in the US because it brings money back into Mexico.

Part of the problem is that after NAFTA did so much to destroy Mexico’s agricultural industry to the benefit of the US, Mexico and its government can’t offer its citizens work that can sustain their families. Most migrants want to be in Mexico, but they need to feed their families. Many Mexicans are here out of necessity.

There have been more deportations in the Obama administration than in the entirety of the Bush administration.

Someone asked, “What happened to Obama?” I think Obama wants to demonstrate compromise, but instead has been stomped on because the Republicans aren’t willing to compromise.

A Question for Discernment

"How does this fit in your movie?"

Think of your life as a film.

Is this thought diverging from the script?  Does this line not fit the character?  Sometimes when I am stuck in thoughts, this is a useful question.

When I can realize that a thought doesn't fit the larger picture, I can say "no" more easily.

Highlight the sections that need real emotional weight.

Is this prayerful?

Is this prayerful?

It's okay to say no to your thoughts.

Peace

Today I am carrying 2 stones in my pockets. The peace “hearth stone” was part of a ritual in my morning class offered by Marie, one of my amazing Roman Catholic peers. The stone chose me (according to the ritual) and is a needed message for me about balance, center, and biting off more than I can chew. The other stone is one that I chose to pick up from a #tdor altar, “to help carry the burden of lives lost.” With everything going on in the world and in many of the circles I operate within and try to support, this time is heavy with grief and struggle. I find this contrast with a season of thanks and the coming of Advent to be infusive. May we all find a balance between grief and joy, saying “yes” and saying “no,” giving and receiving, works and grace. #prayer #ritual #tdor #translivesmatter (at Pacific School of Religion)

Book Title?

Does this title work better?

Church Is Boring.  Science is Real.  I Like Jesus.

Eh?

Thanksgiving and the Feels of a Radical, Progressive, Vegetarian Minister

I'm just gonna post this because I think holidays are complicated. Yesterday was Thanksgiving.  I wrote this yesterday, but chose to post it today, so as not to rain on everyone's parade.

I don't eat meat, so having an animal carcass in my refrigerator is honestly hard for me. It feels yucky and I feel like I need to be praying for that bird, who lived a tortured, short life, and is now shrink-wrapped and beheaded, waiting to be unceremoniously (or ceremoniously, but without much respect for the life of the bird) devoured by my family as we commemorate a lie that perpetuates a white supremacist imagining of American history and continues to ignore white complacency in racist genocide and the ongoing suffering of America's indigenous peoples.

Recognizing and celebrating gratitude is important, especially in a nation as privileged as the U.S.  However, the premises of the holiday fly at odds with an honest telling of history and the spirit of the holiday itself.  To celebrate gratitude for the abundance in our lives without acknowledging the lives slaughtered so we could call that abundance ours (speaking as a white American) is indicative of some of our greatest flaws as a nation.

In many ways, this holidays speaks to who we are, but I would argue that the lessons of gratitude are outweighed by a kind of scotosis that seems to dominate our national narratives.  That may be the truest part of this celebration. 

The Thanksgiving holiday is representative of our national scotosis more than it is representative of a nation that is truly grateful for its blessings or honest about how we come to those "blessings."

Am I grateful that I am well-fed and surrounded by family?  Every effing day.  Do I think holidays that bring us together and ask us to be grateful in a culture that values consumerism and expansion are good ideas?  Of course.  Do I think consumerism and expansion are problematically wound into the narrative of the holiday?  Yes.  Do I think it's harmful to re-tell an historical lie?  Yes.

I think we need to find a better way to root ourselves in gratitude and family than to tell ourselves lies at the expense of the integrity and value of a massacred and continuously oppressed population.

And eating animals is gross and barbaric, IMHO.  A holiday centered around eating an animal in a culture that eats far too many animals, to the detriment of our own health and the health of the planet, not to mention the integrity of animal life, is pretty nasty. 

I don't want to go into my arguments for vegetarianism (you can search my tags to find them).

While this holiday is well-intentioned, I think it highlights some of our biggest problems as a nation.  That we glorify these things and continue to celebrate a holiday that most of us know is built upon a damaging lie, says a lot about where we are in the unfolding of our nation and our moment in history.

I continue to believe in change.  We can do better.

Book Idea

Title:  A Potty-Mouthed Young Minister Challenges the Church

Chapters:

• I Don't Want to Believe Impossible Things
• I Don't Want to Feel Dumb for Believing in Impossible Things
• I Love Jesus and God
• But Not THAT Jesus and God
• I Also Kind of Like Some Other Folks
• And Women!  Women Are Smart and Spiritual, Too!
• In Fact, Everyone Is
• What Does it Mean to Be Protestant in Today's World?  A Legacy of Challenging Church Narrative
• Go Forward:  How to Bring Change and Build a Spiritual Life

What is Religion?

What is religion?

I would say that religion is a system of beliefs and values one has that are related to a history and, most often, a community of others who hold similar beliefs and values derived from that shared history. I would argue that religion is one’s dominant paradigm, whether or not that paradigm can be categorized under the traditional understanding of “religion.” Therefore, political views, atheism, etc. can be considered religions. One’s religion is, more simply, whatever worldview most inspires one’s morality, values, beliefs, and practices. I don’t believe there is anyone who isn’t religiously devoted to something. It’s part of self-identity for most of us.

For me, religion isn’t something that helps me sleep better at night or provides me with some sense of comfort that people who die end up in some kind of Disneyland. My religion is a system which provides a holistic approach to bettering the world and my person. Derived from a history of people seeking to do good in the world (in its better moments), it’s a study of this history, a commitment to justice, and a lens with which to look inward at the kind of relationship I seek to have with myself, others, and the higher order of being. While religion provides me a sense of inner peace and orients my life in a way that enhances meaning, it doesn’t make me giddy.

Elizabeth Cox

She wanted to be one of those people who found a subject to pursue, then discover a sweet secret about themselves, finally seeing through the filter of what was learned. To take knowledge— facts, stories, equations, whatever it was— and learn to breathe under the water of that place. People who did this found out how alive they were.

Elizabeth Cox, The Ragged Way People Fall Out of Love

FYI

Your wounds are proof that you're a fighter.