Small Things and Simple Pleasures

This past week my work was extremely stressful. I felt, as I often do these days, that my responsibilities far outstrip by capacities to meet them. I feel beholden to my colleagues, my students, my friends and family members. I worry. I pray, I meditate, I remind myself of all my blessings, and then I worry some more. Sleep can elude me and I come to the end of the day and the week physically and emotionally spent.

While the nature of my work does not really end when the weekend begins, there is something about Friday that allows me to let down. However this week seemed extra special. When I came home last night my wife had cooked a simple meal: hot dogs, fresh corn, and beans and tomatoes from a friend’s garden. Not elegant, simple – yet so refreshing and delightful.

Then on Saturday morning as I often do, I got on my bike for a long ride along the Schuylkill River Trail and then off into the hills north and west of the river. In the beginning the air was clear and fresh, and lots of people were out walking, running, rollerblading and biking. The sun was bright but not harsh, and when I happened to ride through a shaded area, it was cool and invigorating. As often happens when I take my morning rides, I felt  sluggish at first and somewhat out-of-sorts, but after a few miles the endorphins kicked in and I felt alive and at times almost euphoric. At about mile 16 I was going up a long hill and though my legs had to work there was a rush at just being alive. At mile 28 I bent low and pumped my legs on a long straight stretch, and was aware of how fortunate I was to be strong and healthy enough to feel the rush that comes in such moments.When I finished after 32 miles, I felt tired but complete.

Part of the stress of my week is normal work stuff, some is related to changes taking place in my job leading to feelings of uncertainty, and a lot of it comes from considering the state of the world: the violence, the cold-hearted hatred of some leaders, the desperation of migrants seeking refuge and rescue, the poor state of our educational systems especially for the poor, and wars all over the globe. I wonder, as did many a psalmist where God is in all of this, is there any reason for hope, is there any point in trying to change things, and no clear answer comes. So I need these moments of simple pleasure not to escape these other things, but to balance them out.

As I rode my bike I was reminded of some advice the poet Ranier Marie Rilke gave to a young protégé in his classic work,  Letters to a Young Poet, where he describes what Buddhist writers call “mindfulness”, that attention to the wonder of ordinary things and taken-for-granted pleasures. He wrote:

Here in this vast landscape, swept by the winds and sea, I wonder if there is any person anywhere who can answer the questions that stir in the depths of your being. For even the best miss the mark when they use words for what is elusive and nearly unsayable. But nonetheless, I believe you are not left without a solution, if you turn to things like those that are refreshing my eyes. If you ally yourself with nature, with her sheer existence, with the small things that others overlook and that so suddenly can become huge and immeasurable; if you have this love for what is plain and try very simply, as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent, and somehow more reconciling, perhaps not in your conscious mind, but in your innermost awareness.

Small things and simple pleasures are always available, if I simply take time to note them and then take them in.

[Photos taken by the author]

Why I Have Hope

 

About a month ago a good friend called me and informed me that my blogs were depressing him and that he needed to stop reading them for a while. I was bit taken back because despite a frequent focus on the injustices in so many facets of our public life, on a day to day basis I’m a pretty hopeful guy. His comment got me reflecting on what gives me hope in the midst of the corporate greed, institutional racism, government gridlock and general erosion of basic human rights in our country I so often focus on.

Here’s what I came up with.

Upon reflection I would say that my hope comes from three main sources. The first source of hope is the students I am privileged to teach in the Eastern University Urban Studies program. When each new group of students begins our program I tell them that they are special slice of humanity because they have forgone the lures of consumerism and materialism and, for reasons that vary from individual to individual, have decided to dedicate their lives to work in solidarity with the poor, the marginalized, the forgotten and the oppressed. These students are not only extremely committed and intelligent, but they bring a clear belief that they can make a difference in the world. After taking classes in urban problems, racism, broken communities, research, leadership, and the like, their idealism gets tempered with a gritty awareness of how to address the challenges before them, and  they go on to work in organizations and with community groups do the work of justice at the grassroots level. Being able to invest myself in these young folks (most are in their mid to late 20’s) and seeing what they are doing gives me tremendous hope for the future. The battle for justice is long but there are people committed to that process for decades to come.

My second source of hope lies in the many small movements for social justice that are happening and continue to happen: fast food workers advocating for a raise in the minimum wage; undocumented folks and their allies pushing for immigration reform; moms and student resisting the NRA and gun lobby to work for changes in laws around the use and purchase of firearms; and people from across Pennsylvania working together to make a fair funding formula for public education a top political priority in the state – just to name a few recent ones. As I read the blogs and newsletters of progressive organizations, I am reminded that the Montgomery (AL) Bus Boycott in 1955 that brought the Civil Rights Movement into national media attention was preceded by decades of effort by small groups of committed individuals working to bring about change in the segregated South. Rosa Parks was not the first person to refuse to give up her seat on a segregated public bus, Martin Luther King, Jr. was not the first preacher to give voice to black people’s concerns, and Montgomery was not the only Southern city to have faced a challenge from its citizens of color. These things had been going on in communities big and small for a long time; what Montgomery did was light a spark that brought the energy together to forge a movement. I see the seemingly small and disconnected efforts that have been going on for the past several years as moving us toward a time when a larger movement will emerge to challenge the corporate power structure and the government leaders who have sold their soul to lobbyists and the big donors instead of listening to their constituents. A new civil rights movement is coming. I don’t know when, how, where or what it will look like, but I can feel the movement coming; like clouds before storm, like tremors before an earthquake.

My third source of hope comes from the promise of the Bible that God is truly on the side of the oppressed. During this Advent season I have been struck by how often the promise of the coming Messiah is couched in the language of justice. Isaiah 40 speaks of the Messiah being one who “gives strength to the weary and power to the weak” (vs. 29).  Isaiah 11 says that this Messiah “with righteousness judge the needy, with justice give[s] decisions for the poor of the earth” (vs. 4). Mary in her beautiful song upon learning that she is given birth sings that God “has brought down the rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1. 52-53). Paulo Freire, who is my inspiration for many things having to do with justice, said that God gives us the vision of what the world can and should be and then commissions us to go out and make it reality thru what he calls denunciation and annunciation. According to Freire, our job in essence is to denounce things in our current reality that block or undermine that just society from coming into being and work to dismantle them. Then our job is to announce the new reality, the just society God desires to see, and work toward it.  I don’t think that God is somehow going to wave his hand and all injustice will go away, nor am I waiting for things to get better only in the afterlife. Rather I believe God gives us a picture of what life can and should be, and empowers us to make it happen.

This hope is not based in a quick fix or magic transformation. Hope calls me and others like me to a life of struggle, disappointment, frustration and occasional celebrations for small victories. As the apostle Paul points out in Romans 5.1-5, hope is borne out of suffering, but that the hope connects us with an infilling of God’s spirit, the spirit of history, to continue the struggle. In non-theological terms it comes down to knowing one is on the right side of history, working for that which is good, just and true, and moving into the future with a conviction shared with other like-minded individuals. This hope recognizes that the power structures are deeply entrenched and will not easily be toppled or transformed, but it also recognizes the continued concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few is not sustainable for the planet or the country. If nothing else the structure will topple under the weight of its own hubris or more likely it will be torn down like the Berlin Wall, but in any case it will fall.

I was too young to fully appreciate the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s in the moment. However in my study of that movement I know that from it issued forth other movements for peace in Vietnam, women’s rights, and environmental awareness. Could something similar be about to happen now? The increased racial/cultural diversity of our nation, the pressure of global warming, the arrogant intransigence of the one-percenters and the growing unrest within the general population are setting the stage for something to happen. That is why I keep writing and working and teaching and living into that newer, more just and inclusive world; therein lies my hope.

President Obama – Return to “Hope and Change”

Like most of the folks who voted for then-Senator Obama to become president four years ago, I was sold on the promise of “hope and change.” While I have been politically aware and involved since my college days, I rarely had found a candidate who I could believe in and support like Barack Obama. He talked about bringing a change to government that would be more sensitive to the needs of the poor, and would move past the liberal-conservative debate. However, once in office faced with a huge financial crisis and surrounded by a group of former and present Wall Street bankers and financiers, Obama made some moves that both Democrats and Republicans supported (though now the latter disavow any part in it) to prop up the “banks too big to fail” while the gap between the haves and have-nots grew even widers. Along the way he proposed a revamped health care system, supported gay marriage, provided an avenue for Dream-ers to become legal residents, provided money for projects rebuilding infrastructure and sought to address the sagging public school system. While I have not always support the ways he went about these things, at least they have been on his radar.

Now that the Republicans have solidified their presidential candidate team with Romney and Ryan, there is no question that they have decided on a course of action that will benefit the wealthy and the corporations, deprive basic needs for the poor and indigent, remove regulations on banks and business, return to the flawed policy of primarily supporting carbon-based fuels, and generally run a government that will benefit the few at the expense of the many. Over the last four years, the Republican leadership under pressure from the Tea Party and big money have taken a no-compromise approach to government simply feeding the polarization that was there before 2008. In contrast the Democrats under Obama have sought to find a “middle ground” – either out of a commitment to consensus government or just plain spinelessness – I have never been really clear.

Well, Mr. President, its time to return to hope and change. There are many of us who still embrace your vision of a more inclusive, more just, more compassionate America. The issue for us is not more or less government, but what kind of government: a government that recognizes that poor people are citizens too, that wealthy people need to pay their fair share, that quality education and health care should be a right not a privilege, and that while business is an important part of our economy, government is more than simply about serving the desires of business at the expense of the general population. In a sense Mr. President, we want to hold you to your promises and to the vision that you presented four years ago.

In that way we don’t want you to spend your ad time and campaigning Romney/Ryan bashing, but rather presenting a vision of what you would and could do if given a second term.  Every week I get phone calls, emails and junk mail from the Democrats bashing the opposition; I’m sorry but that’s not what motivates me. Psychologists tell us that fear and anger are short term motivators, but hope and love last over a long time. The change needed to transform this country is long term, longer than your next 4 year term.  We are in a struggle for the future and soul of the country; more than that millions of lives are at stake when we talk about government initiatives in healthcare, poverty reduction, education and the like.

Like Reinhold Neibuhr I recognize that the work of government involves compromise and struggle, and that what government achieves will fall short of perfection. But like contemporary prophets such as Martin Luther King, and the Anabaptist peacemakers thru the centuries, I believe the role of people of faith is to call government, society and culture to a higher standard, even when I recognize it will fall short of reaching that standard. Mr. President, when you spoke of hope and change you pointed us to that higher ideal. I support your original vision – please return and you will have my active support. Continue to run negative ads and you will have my vote, but not much more.

Resurrection: Neither Fast Nor Fair

For the last six months or so, I have been struggling with asthma. I woke up on a Sunday morning with a severe shortness of breath, which the next day was diagnosed as “mild persistent asthma.” I was given various medicines, which created a variety of side effects in other parts of my body, such as weakness, tingling, and sleeplessness. Moreover, the shortness of breath seemed to come and go at unexpected times, not lending itself to a clear cause-effect diagnosis. Along with the asthma, acute anxiety has sometimes surfaced, as either a cause or an effect of the asthma or both – I’m not sure. Just when I would think I was getting my health and emotions “under control,” something would happen to send me in a tailspin of anxiety and breathlessness again. I don’t know from day to day if I will feel better or worse, so that now I approach each new morning wondering how I will feel, and how much energy  and breath I will have that day.

Before this struggle began, I was a person who felt like his life was in control.  I had my health and when I faced a health challenge, I was usually able to muster the strength or resolve to “get through it” and feel better again. That strategy no longer works. As a result, at times this whole experience has done a number on my self-esteem and self-confidence, but it also has brought me a new appreciation of the grace that awaits one each day. I no longer struggle like I did back in November; the medicines I take seem to be keeping me in balance and I have a sense of normalcy again, but I certainly don’t take my health for granted like I did before.

As I have reflected on the one year anniversary of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and followed the efforts in Japan to respond to the tsunami and earthquake that occurred in that country, I have been reminded that it is not just my life, but all of life that is beyond our control. Like I did with my health, we can delude ourselves into thinking that we have things in hand, but in fact all of life is flux and change, and we don’t have a stop or reset button to bring things back to zero. Sometimes we must just ride the wave and see where it takes us.

As I have gone through my experience I have sustained myself with the thought that in the Spring I will feel better. Somehow the cycle from winter to spring mirrors our journey from pain through struggle to hope, from losing control to surrender to acceptance. That passage from Winter to Spring is also reflected in the passage through Lent, to Holy Week and to Easter.

Recently, I came a cross a poem by Mary Bernard that compares the passage from winter to spring to Resurrection. One message of this poem is that the passage to Spring does not erase or forget the struggle of Winter, just as the Resurrection of Jesus did not remove the scars of the cross from his body. That is why Jesus could say to Thomas, “Put your hands in the holes in my hands and side” (John 20.25). Though resurrected, Jesus still bore the marks of his suffering. That juxtaposition and paradox is instructive for us. Even as we enjoy grace, hope, life and love, those things come at a price that we bear and carry around with us.

In her poem, Mary Bernard describes the paradox of Resurrection (using the image of winter to spring) this way:

Long before this winter’s snow

I dreamt of this day’s sunny glow

For some fast way to get around

Its hurt and cold. I’ve found

If I had looked at what was there,

That things don’t follow fast or fair

That life goes on, and times do change

And grass does grow despite life’s pain.

Resurrection comes neither fast nor fair, but it comes. And as grass springs from the rock of suffering, so hope comes through the struggle. May those who struggle find strength and hope in this realization.

Paradoxical Hope in the Age of Obama

Last year when Barack Obama was running for president the overriding theme was Hope. He had even written a book called The Audacity of Hope that outlined his vision for the United States. Many if not most the people who voted for him saw his election in almost messianic terms in that it was believed that Barack Obama would bring significant changes both in terms of government policies at home and our image and interaction with peoples around the world. Apparently the Nobel Peace prize voters thought so too, as it is widely agreed (even by Obama himself) this being given that award was not so much for what he had done, as for the hope and expectation his election to the presidency represented to the world.

For the last year Pres. Obama has been working to enact the agenda he campaigned on in spite of a crippling economic recession that reached its lowest point just as he assumed office. He has taken or proposed actions to stimulate the economy, hold financial institutions and big business more accountable, challenge people adapt to the realities of global warming, and pass comprehensive health care legislation. His vision and hope for change have clashed head on with the realities of conservative resistance and liberal dithering at home, and the brutality, oppression, and violence abroad.

Most recently Obama made a decision to send 30,000 more troops to fight an unwinable war in Afghanistan. I, like many others believe our approach there needs to be less military and more focused on education, building infrastructure and developing the economy. As Greg Mortenson points out in his book Three Cups of Tea, the best way to fight the Taliban is to build more schools. Our current approach simply kills more innocent civilians and therefore creates more “terrorists” whereas helping the common folks with their basic needs will not only raise their prospects but also draw them in to friendship.

Now to Pres. Obama’s credit, during his campaign he consistently said he would send more troops to Afghanistan. So no one should have been surprised at his decision. That’s why the Nobel Peace prize folks got a speech on just war theory because that is how Obama saw our involvement in Afghanistan. As he was deliberating these past months, I admit I was hoping that he would change his mind, but in the end he did not. So I was not surprised even though I was deeply saddened.

Despite Pres. Obama’s argument to the contrary, Afghanistan is very much like the Vietnam War: an unwinnable war, against a small and illusory enemy, supporting a corrupt government, in an effort without clear and measurable objectives. As Yogi Berra might say “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

All of this has gotten me wondering: Where is the hope we had so counted on and vote for?

Like many Americans I have generally believed in history as progress – that idea that as a nation we are slowly evolving toward higher levels of understanding and functioning that as our politicians often tell us, “Our best days are still ahead of us.” Moreover as a Christian I have generally subscribed to the idea that God is active in human history and moving humankind toward some glorious and positive conclusion, that the Kingdom of God is breaking into our world and at some point God will send Jesus to bring that process to completion.

Not any longer.

I have pretty much chucked those ideas now. I don’t see history as progress, nor do I see God moving us toward some millennium. I now see history, like I see my life, as a series of recurring patterns. The awareness of these patterns gives me the opportunity to learn and possibly change. However, the reality is that those patterns are so deeply ingrained that often change is difficult to achieve, and when it does occur, it is usually partial and inadequate. So for instance in my personal life, I find that the older I get the more I become like my parents in ways I find both rewarding and disconcerting. When it comes to events on the world stage, I see humankind repeating patterns, such as we are with Afghanistan, a pattern that reminds me disturbingly of the tragedy of Vietnam.

The even larger pattern I see is that empires fall. Persia, Egypt, Rome, Great Britain and the Soviet Union once were all great empires that dominated large parts of their world. Today those former empires are shadows of themselves. The United States as an empire is also destined to fall; it is part of an historical pattern. Whether it will happen in my lifetime or the lives of my kids, I can’t say. However, the decision about Afghanistan, along with the worldwide economic crisis triggered by Wall Street, the environmental challenges of global warming, and the growing disparities of wealth and poverty at home point to signs that US empire is beginning to crumble; we are repeating many of the same patterns of empires before us.

Despite these seemingly dire circumstances and my admittedly pessimistic perspective on our nation’s prospects, I still am a person of hope.

I am a person of hope not because I think we will break the pattern, but because I believe we survive and sometimes even thrive as a human race despite those patterns. My hope is not in the United States or Barack Obama or some romantic notion of human evolution, but rather in a God whose very Spirit gives the human race the capacity to somehow endure dramatic and often drastic changes. It concerns and saddens me greatly that millions of people suffer humanity’s arrogance and ignorance, and un willingness to learn from our mistakes. Nonetheless, it is the perseverance of those who struggle, who are oppressed, and who are neglected and maligned by the powers that be, who at the same time somehow are able to celebrate and dance. My hope is in God’s gift of resilience. My hope is in God who has sided with the dispossessed and marginalized against the powers that be, and who remains constant despite the recurring patterns of history.

As Jim Wallis writes : “Hope is the door from one reality to another. Things that seem possible, reasonable, understandable, even logical in hindsight….often seemed quite impossible, unreasonable, nonsensical and illogical when we were looking ahead to them. The changes, the possibilities, the opportunities, the surprises that no one or very few would even have imagined become history after they’ve occurred.” (quoted in Bass, The People’s History of Christianity, p. 310).

In short my hope in this age of Obama is not in our innovative and courageous president, nor a myth of human progress, but rather in the paradox that by grace God walks with us from this reality to next not because of our efforts, but often in spite of them.

Hope and the Culture of Violence

Over the last several months leading up to my arrest in front of Colisimos gun shop and then the five months after that leading up to my trial, I have been made acutely aware of how deeply embedded violence is in U.S. culture. While I was already quite aware of the role violence plays in our culture, being involved in an effort to stop the flow of illegal guns has shown me how irrational the arguments of the NRA and the gun lobby can be. I have come to see more clearly that the struggle in which we are involved has touched a nerve deeply rooted in our cultural DNA. J. Denny Weaver (Anabaptist Theology in the Face of Postmodernity, 2000) has shown how from the very beginning of our nation there has been a clear belief in the link between freedom and guns. A simple search on Google or YouTube of “Freedom and Guns” reveals how prevalent such a belief still is today. In a recent NY times op-ed piece Bob Herbert even suggests that the recent shootings in the Holocaust Museum, Pittsburgh and Wichita, are linked to the NRA-inspired surge in gun purchases since Obama’s election, out of fear that Obama will impose stricter gun control laws.

However, I think the issue goes far deeper than guns or the NRA. We on the progressive end of the political spectrum are as culpable the conservatives we like to lambaste. While the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller was an expression of violence gone wild, so too are the daily abortions he and others like him commit. While the violence on our streets is a concern, so should be the thousands of murders we witness on our favorite TV shows and movies. While we rightly decry violence against police officers in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other major cities, what about the violence against innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan that is unfortunately (we say) a part of our military strategy? What kind of culture makes it more attractive for poor inner city kids to choose the military and the possibility of dying in war to the staying in their neighborhood and facing the possibility of dying in that neighborhood? While we are not alone in the world as violent, dangerous place, how many weapons large and small are manufactured here and sold to be used in those other places? We wonder about how certain criminals can be so inhumane, and then we put them into a criminal justice system that is so violence-saturated that often people come out more violent than when they went in.

Sadly, religion, especially Christianity, has been a contributing factor to this culture. The pogroms against Jews, the enslavement of Africans and subsequent systematized racism that followed, and the virtual elimination of millions of Native Americans – all by Christian (Protestant and Catholic) Europeans – testify to the debilitating and denigrating role religion has played in the perpetuation of violence against others. A simple YouTube or Google search of “God and Guns” reveals how alive that link still is today. The absurdity of this link was taken to an extreme recently in a Kentucky church that actually had a worship service dedicated to allowing people to openly carry their handguns.

This culture of violence is literally killing us directly and indirectly. We are painfully aware of the direct cost of violence as we watch the evening news. However, Dan Groody (Globalization, Spirituality and Justice, 2007)illustrates the indirect cost by talking what military spending could be used for. If the world redirected its military spending for one day, malaria in Africa could be eliminated. Two days spending could provide the health services to prevent 3 million infant deaths a year. A week's spending could provide education for 140 million children in the developing world. When we examine these costs of violence, we have to ask: what must change?

While the United States is not alone in its addiction to violence, it is too easy for us to either rationalize it, feel overwhelmed by it, or try to simply deny it. Professor John Horgan routinely confronts fatalism in his students regarding the inevitability of war. My guess that a poll of most Americans would reveal that while they favor limits on gun purchases, they are resigned to the fact that the laws probably will never change, and that those of us who try to fight the NRA and the gun lobby are like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Certainly there is good reason for skepticism when common sense laws get thrown about courts, as happened in Philadelphia this week. There is reason for despair when a “one handgun a month" law can’t get passed in PA, but the Congress can pass a law allowing people to carry concealed weapons into national parks. There is reason for frustration when those in the pro-gun lobby continually create confusion and fear by stating that attempts to control the sale of any guns, is tantamount to control the sale of all guns.

There is no question that our cultural addiction to violence remains strong, and yet I remain imminently hopeful not only that gun laws will change, but that we are at a time when the futility of violence and the absurdity of the gun lobby’s arguments are showing them for what they are. I am hopeful because there are many countries in the world, especially Europe and parts of Asia, where societies carry on quite civilly without the need to show bravado through violence.

I remain hopeful because a change in our culture’s addiction to violence will either consume itself or we will change.

I have hope because I believe in a God of Justice and a God of history.

I have hope because I I believe with Paulo Freire that change is difficult, but it can happen.

I remain hopeful because as I study the movements for social change such as happened with civil rights and against nuclear arms, I can see there was a time when it seemed that things would never change. And yet today we have a black man as president who talks about his commitment to abolishing all nuclear weapons; who would've thunk it?.

I remain hopeful because our cause is right and just, and stands on the side of Truth and “Truth crushed to earth is still truth and like a seed will rise again” (Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Not Guilty!

May 26 is a day I will never forget. At about 5:30 in the afternoon, after nearly 6 hours of testimony and legal debate, the twelve of us arrested for protesting in front of Colismo’s Gun Shop were pronounced not guilty by Judge Yvette Simmons. After nearly 5 months of preparation and waiting since our arrests in mid-January, we gave a collective sigh of relief for justice being done. As I said in my testimony, the very fact that we were even brought up on charges was a contradiction of justice, when the current laws in Pennsylvania readily allow for the process of straw-purchasing. While Judge Simmons did not explain her verdict, she appeared to be moved by the collective convictions of those of us who testified. Our lawyers invoked a “justification defense,” which essentially said that our actions were justified in that we committed a lesser harm in order to prevent a greater danger.

To be part of the action and the trial was a humbling privilege that will stay with me for a long time. As I have previously shared in this blog, I had a traumatic experience in jail after we were arrested. As a result I was quite timid when it came to the whole legal process; yet time and time again I was lifted and inspired by the passion, conviction and commitment of my co-defendants. To be counted in the same number as these amazing people was a humbling honor.

Moreover, the hundreds of people who came to support us before and during the trial, many of whom spent part or all of the day sitting at the trial, was amazing. Words cannot express how it felt to have all these folks giving up their time to stand with us in our effort to draw attention to Mr. Colimos reluctance to do his part to stem the flow of illegal guns on to the streets of our city. Their presence was a reminder that what we had done carried a significance beyond our individual convictions in front of one particularly notorious gun shop.

Beyond those who were physically present, there were many more who were praying for us. Shortly before the trial, I was handed an envelope in which was contained a small knit square 12 stitches by 12 stitches. With it was a note indicating the square was reminder of this woman’s prayer for all of us. She had knit one for each of us. Several times during the day, and especially shortly before I testified, I held that square in my hand as a reminder of the greater Presence with us. I was reminded that we were being upheld by brothers and sisters in spiritual solidarity with us.

During his testimony, Fr. Isaac Miller drew attention to the long standing tradition of Christian civil disobedience best exemplified my Dr. Martin Luther King during his non-violent struggle for Civil Rights. Fr. Miller reminded us that we serve a higher law that calls us to challenge unjust laws when they contradict God’s law. Yesterday was a validation that this struggle is a divine struggle for justice against principalities and powers that have a vice grip on the processes of legislation and justice in our country.

For that reason while yesterday was great day, today we must continue the struggle. During the trial we did not change one law, nor did we necessarily stop any straw purchasing. As a sign of hope I can say that in my perusal of the morning paper I did not see any mention of gun violence in Philadelphia on the night of May 26. Nonetheless, the struggle must continue. That is why I will be at Millcreek Baptist Church this weekend at their 2nd annual stop the violence conference, which will include a gun buyback, and I will be speaking at Frazer Mennonite Church’s peace festival. That is why some of us will continue to witness in front of Colisimos on Mondays and Fridays. That is why Heeding God’s Call will continue to invite and encourage churches to join this faith-based effort to change the laws and practices in Pennsylvania around the sale and use of guns.

Perhaps the most encouraging sign that came from the trial was the hope our actions engendered in others. During a short break in the trial I was approached by a distinguished African-American man in his early 60’s. As he shook my hand and thanked me, he said that in the 60’s and 70’s he had engaged in activism and civil disobedience during the Civil Rights struggle. He is now a lawyer, but said that our action had encouraged him that people were still willing to put their livelihoods on the line for social justice. What I and the others endured was probably nothing compared to the suffering he must have endured during the tumultuous days of the Civil Rights struggle, and yet he was thanking me! I thank him for showing me and the others the way in which the struggle for justice can be won against overwhelming odds. While I did not see my decision to stand up for justice by sitting down in front of a gun shop as a particularly courageous act, I recognize that it has inspired and emboldened others. My hope is that our actions and the trial that followed can be a catapult to further action that eventually will change the laws and the violence-saturated culture in which we live. When that day comes, I will be grateful for having played a small part in bringing it into being.

Resurrection Hope on Spring Garden Street

On Good Friday, April 10, about 100 people gathered near Colismo's Gun shop to commemorate the death of Jesus, and its connection to the countless meaningless deaths due to gun violence. Folks from all walks of life gathered to say that illegal guns and the straw purchasing that lets these guns onto the street needed to end. Several local preachers spoke, as well as two mothers who had lost their sons to gun violence. We were led in songs that spoke of hope. We prayed for the those who had died due to gun violence in the previous year by name. We were called to commitment and action to end this scourge. James Colisimo, the gun shop owner who had refused to sign the code of conduct that wold allow him to more readily identify straw buyers in his shop was called out by name to act. The shroud that hung on the cross was laid on a enlarged gun and coffin, saying death to the means of destruction not to more victims. We ended the service by marching in front of the gun shop, singing "Lord, Listen to your children praying", an enlarged version of the code of conduct being held in front of us. Four police officers stood in front of the shop, "protecting" Mr. Colismo from this spiritual onslaught.

Altogether it was an inspiring gathering, a sign of hope that the violence can end. This gathering had a feel and a color that was more diverse, and included not just concerned white folks like me (personally distant from the violence) and folks who were and have been on the front lines of this struggle for a long time. However, the presence of the mothers reminded me of (1) the struggle is a long one (these mothers had been speaking out since the early 1990's); and (2) the pain and suffering of those who have lost loved ones or been maimed by guns is also long. However, my prayer is that they found comfort and felt the hope I felt in that gathering.

On Good Friday, we stand in the face of Death, to anticipate Death's defeat. As the speaker that day, Bishop NewKirk of Harold O.Davis Memorial Baptist Church, said, just because guns are legal, when young people die needlessly, they are not moral. Like slavery, like the Native American Genocide, like the Japanese-American internment during WW II, selling guns to straw buyers is "legal" but not "moral." The instruments of death, by some twisted NRA, Second Amendment logic, are legal, but in this age when gun men kill 13 people in a Binghamton Immigration center, and 3 police officers in Pittsburgh, and 318 people in one year in Philadelphia; those guns may be legal, but they are not moral.

I believe the laws in PA will be changed to limit the sale of handguns to straw buyers - its only a matter of alot of effort and time. I believe the NRA can be revealed for the fraudulent front for the gun manufacturers that it is. I believe that gun dealers like Colismo's, that will not be accountable for their business will be exposed and disgraced. Hope is on the rise. Death will be defeated. This was the feeling and message with which I left the service that day. Indeed, there was hope of resurrection on Spring Garden St on Good Friday!

(Many thanks to Kemah Washington for his pictures of that day!)

Living the Questions for the New Year

For many people, the beginning of a new year is a time of reflection and prognostication. We look back on the year that has passed and note the highs and lows, & the good, the bad and the disappointing. Then we look ahead to the new year. Some of us even make personal resolutions. The new year is also a time for us to project our hopes for the world at large for the coming year.

Yet this year in the midst of an economic crisis, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, pirates seizing ships on the high seas, continued foot-dragging on global warming and so many other things, I find myself asking questions of the new year rather than expressing hope. And so I share with you my questions for 2009.

First, how will Barack Obama meet the challenges of the presidency such as the global economic crisis, the inequities in health care, a foreign policy in a polarized world, global warming, and the plight of the truly poor both in the US and across the world? Not since John F. Kennedy has someone entered the Oval Office amidst such high hopes and expectations. Since Nov. 5, Obama has been acting presidential even though he does not actually take office until January 20. Yet he enters the presidency facing multiple challenges that require not simply some quick fixes, but rather a complete paradigm shift as to how we think of ourselves as U.S. citizens and citizens of the world. I wonder, is he committed to the dramatic change he called us to in the campaign? Obama campaigned on a platform of change, and yet his appointees to the cabinet thus far seem remarkably similar to what has gone before; in fact many of his appointees served in the Clinton administration, and at least one (Defense Secretary Robert Gates) in the Bush administration. Now I realize that no matter who is sitting around the table Obama will be directing the conversation, and overseeing major decisions, and that in itself is a major change. in his second book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama makes clear is that he is not an ideologue of the left or the right, as much as he is a pragmatist. His mantras are “whatever works” and “whatever it takes.” In a time when there is a great deal of fixing to be done, will he be able to convince Congress and the American people, that the lifestyles we have been living need to be simplified, that the wars we have been fighting need a different approach, and the way we relate to the world needs to be significantly altered. Can he pull it off? That’s my first question.

My second question is this: How far down will the U.S. and global economy go? All the “experts” say 2009 will continue to deteriorate until it begins to turn around. However, these are the same guys who a few months ago were predicting we had hit bottom and the various government bailouts would turn us around. In other words, nobody knows. To add insult to injury to the increasing economic troubles, Bernard Madoff was caught running a billion dollar pyramid scheme, just highlighting how fragile and illusory our economic well being was and is even if you are filthy rich. As Thomas Friedman recently pointed out ,the Wall Street, mortgage and bank collapses came about based on loans where no money actually passed hands and where no one was willing to reveal the financial slights of hand that characterized many of the loan, stock and mortgage deals. Friedman concludes his analysis of the financial crisis by saying “we’re all going to be working harder for less money and fewer government services --- if we’re lucky.” That’s not very encouraging. My worries are pretty mild compared to most (how will I pay my daughter’s college tuition, will students be able to afford to come to Eastern University, what will the value of my house be), but others are facing economic collapse and some painful and difficult choices, and I wonder how will we as a people manage?

Third, how deep and severe is the damage that has been done by the Bush administration? The Philadelphia Inquirer recently ran a series of articles about the undoing of EPA regulations by the Bush administration. There have also been articles on the legacy of Dick Cheney’s vice presidency in which his disregard from public opinion was made clear. What concerns me is that we have yet to really see the extent to which the decisions of the Bush administration have handicapped the US image around the world, hampered the care of the environment, promoted the deregulation of the oil and financial industries and who knows what else. In my adult life I do not recall an administration that operated with such impunity as this outgoing administration. Even those who worked in that administration speak of the lack of commitment to honesty and truth. I fear the next few months will reveal just how much we have been duped.

Finally, what will become of the major places of conflict in the world: Zimbabwe, Congo, Sudan, Israel/Palestine, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea (just to name a few)? The prevalence of poverty and civil war around the world is a matter of grave concern. Any one of these places could be the staging ground for a broadening global conflict. There are certain interests that would like nothing better than more war, be they weapons manufacturers, mercenaries or governments, because war is good business. War also allows us to divide the world into “them” and “us” rather than look to our common needs and interests. As I look out on the horizon, I hope for peace and justice in these places, but I am continually troubled by our inability and unwillingness as a human race to pursue that peace. I am sure that all of these conflicts have a history and a set of circumstances that justify the conflicts from the combatants’ perspectives. Yet the ongoing decision to choose war over reconciliation only perpetuates needless suffering and death.

These are heavy questions I bring as a world citizen into 2009. By asking them, I am not throwing up my hands in despair. Rather, I see these questions as informing my prayers and to a certain extent shaping my actions. I am not without hope, but that hope is not built on a Pollyanna notion that “everything will be all right.” That hope is informed by the difficult choices all of us must make, if we are to act constructively in and on the world in which we live. And so in the words of the German poet Rainer Rilke I will “live the questions” as I enter the new year

Tigger With A Cause

For the past several months the media has been highlighting “The Last Lecture, ” an actual lecture delivered by Dr. Randy Pausch on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Pausch was a computer science professor at CMU who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. At the time he delivered the lecture he was only expected to live for another 2-3 months, which is normal for pancreatic cancer. However, he beat the odds, and just recently passed away on July 25, 2008.

If you have 75 minutes to spare, “The Last Lecture” is worth listening to. Dr. Pausch shares a number stories about how he had been able to fulfill his personal dreams, how as a professor he encouraged the dreams of others, and then the life lessons he learned along the way. What makes the lecture so compelling is the context of his impending death and the sincere gratitude he has for the people in his life: mentors, colleagues, students, friends and family. The lessons and insights themselves are not particularly profound; what makes them so compelling is that the man sharing them lived them and did not just speak them. So now there are Last Lecture CD’s, podcasts, and books, and as American consumer culture is prone to do, we have made "The Last Lecture" into a commodity to be purchased on the self-help shelf at you local bookstore. Even so, cynicism aside, "The Last Lecture" is worth your time.

I finally took the time a few nights ago to view/listen to "The Last Lecture", and was particularly struck by one of his life lessons. He said all of us can choose in life to either be a Tigger or an Eeyore. For those not familiar with the Winnie the Pooh stories, Tigger is a bouncy, fun-loving tiger who never stops moving and finds joy in everything. Eeyore, on the other hand, is a morose, self-pitying donkey for whom life is a constant struggle and disappointment. Pausch’s point was this: we have a choice as to how we will engage the world, either as an exciting fun-filled adventurer or as a self-pitying pessimist. Randy Pausch chose to be a Tigger, and demonstrated that by causing an auditorium of people to laugh to the point of tears while talking about his impending death.

Depression is a terrible disability, and I realize that often there are chemical imbalances involved, but nonetheless I think Pausch has an excellent point. While not all of us have the “luxury” of knowing when and how our lives will end, all of us have the choice as to how we will live until our lives do end. When I was a pastor ministering to dying people, I came to realize that the so-called “deathbed conversion” was a false myth. People died in the same way they lived. If they were cynical or morose or self-centered in life, they were the same way in death; likewise if they were compassionate, positive and other-centered in life, they died that way too.

While I can have my “pity party” moments, I choose to embrace life with a Tigger mentality. However, Tigger is probably not the image I would have chosen because the issues confronting us today are too severe to just “bounce” through life. Nearly every day I interact with people who face issues of poverty, illness, family breakdown, racism and the like. On a national and global scale we are at dangerous place in history in large part due to the misplaced policies of our own government. So the Tigger image alone does not do it for me; Tigger often did not really interact with people and the world in a meaningful way. Yet, I like Tigger’s attitude, his spunk, his endless energy and his desire to see an adventure in every event.

Recently, I came across a line written by Reinhold Niebuhr in The Irony of American History:

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime, therefore we must be saved by hope.”

I couple that with the saying attributed to Gandhi:

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

These words capture what drives me these days. They capture who at my best I hope to be. I want to work for positive changes in the world that will outlive me. So I couple Niebuhr's and Gandhi's words with Pausch’s image of Tigger, and say I want to be a Tigger with a cause. I want to be engaged in lifting up the lives of others as I am compelled and inspired by hope.

I don’t think Randy Pausch was a particularly religious man; he makes no mention of faith in his last lecture. Nonetheless, there is clear spiritual import in what he says: we have a choice as to how we will live life. Moses (Deuteronomy 30.15, 19b) put it this way: “I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction … Now choose life so that you and your children may live.” Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture” (which he reveals at the end is really a message for his three young children) is a call to choose life, to be a Tigger with a Cause for as many days as we have left in this life... and beyond.

Hope Vs. Realism

Today in church, the pastor was talking about hope, and I got to thinking about the current knock on Barack Obama’s message of hope. Hillary Clinton and John McCain attack Obama as simply having nice-sounding words with no substance. McCain and Clinton have a legitimate right to challenge Obama to speak specifically and concretely about his potential plans and policies. However, underneath their political jabs is the troubling and cynical assumption that there is no such think as hope, because one must be "realistic!" To the "realist," hope seems like a pipdream. Given this cynical attitude, it is no wonder Obama entitled his latest book The Audacity of Hope; to purveyors of American real politick Obama’s message is an affront.

Over the last couple of years I have been studying the life and work of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator who developed a method of literacy training that enabled thousands of illiterate campesinos to read in a matter of months. His methods were so successful that the Brazilian government imprisoned him for sedition, and eventually exiled him. The ruling elite didn’t trust someone who would teach folks how to read, because then those same folks were able figure out that their so-called leaders were working in ways that limited their opportunities and caused their suffering. Freire spent his 20 year exile traveling the globe sharing his message and educational philosophy. Late in life when the Brazilian government changed hands, he was allowed back into the country where he held a government post as Education Minister until his death in 1997.

Throughout much of his life Freire sought to raise the prospects of the poorest of the world’s poor by giving them one of the most valuable tools for advancing one’s station in life: the ability to read. His work came to light in the English speaking world with the English translation of his seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1970.Freire understood that what he was doing had political implications, and thus he taught his students to not only read the word, but also “read the world” and the forces that oppressed them. Through this process of consciouness raising, Freire's method empowered poor folks to challenge their oppressors and change their conditions.

Despite his personal struggles and the powerful opposition he faced, Paulo Freire was always known as a joyful man full of hope. Thus, it is fitting that one of his last writings was entitled Pedagogy of Hope, which was a retrospective on the working out of ideas expressed decades before in Pedagogy of Oppressed.

Denis Collins, one of Freire’s biographers, said of him,

“How is one to account for the optimism of Paulo Freire?… Freire’s life and work as an educator is optimistic in spite of poverty, imprisonment and exile…. On a planet where more than half the people go hungry every day because nations are incapable of feeding all their citizens, where we cannot agree that every being has a right to eat, Paulo Freire toils to help men and women overcome their sense of powerlessness to act on their own behalf” (Denis Collins, Paulo Freire: His Life, Works, and Thought).

Freire himself put it this way late in his life when he wrote: “Above all my difference lies in my critical, in no-way-naïve optimism and the hope that encourages me and that does not exist for the fatalistic” (Pedagogy of the Heart, p. 40). Fatalism and cynicism had no place in Freire’s life because he was too busy trying to be part of the solution to injustice rather than a cynical bystander.

Freire believed that the messenger of hope had a two fold purpose: denunciation and annunciation. The prophet denounces the systems, policies and persons that oppress and marginalize the poor and outcast, while announcing the possibility of a world where justice, freedom and opportunity are equally available to all. Like other messengers of hope such as ML King, Mahatma Gandhi and Cesar Chavez, Freire's message was a threat to the folks in power because he not only challenged their place of privilege, but also the policies and actions that gave them that privilege. You see, cynicism always serves the purposes of those in power because it discourages people from seeking meaningful change.

Time will tell if Barack Obama is simply mouthing high sounding words or is a true messenger of hope. In no way do I place him in the same company as people like Freire, King, Gandhi or Chavez. At the same time I can not side with those who would regard hope as unrealistic. Perhaps I am a dreamer, but dreamers are ones who change the world from what it is to the world as it could and should be. Hope is not the opposite of “realism,” but rather the antidote to a fatalism that saps people of their drive and capacity to work for meaningful change.