A sermon by Lindsey Krinks preached at the Vanderbilt Divinity School (VDS) Chapel on April 3rd, 2013

(Text: The Road to Emmaus, Luke 24:13-35)

I’m so grateful to be here today on April 3^rd—a very symbolic day. It’s not only my husband Andrew’s birthday and the day James Cone is speaking at VDS, but it’s also the Wednesday after the resurrection and the 45^th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have been to the mountaintop” speech which he delivered 200 miles West of Nashville in Memphis on the eve of his assassination.

I was asked to preach today on Christian social witness—on advocacy and activism as witness—and to do this, I want to put my experiences in conversation with the Road to Emmaus passage and King’s last speech.

So let me ask: what comes to your mind when you hear the word “advocacy?” What comes to mind when you hear “activism”? What about “witness?” When was the last time you, like Cleopas and his companion, felt your heart burning within you? When was the last time you, like Thomas Merton, felt like all your silence was on fire?

What if advocacy and activism were more than being “a voice for the voiceless,” more than carrying signs and shouting chants? What if they were invitations for us to participate in the kingdom of God—the beloved community—on earth, for our eyes to be opened, and for us to meet and suffer with and be transformed by the risen Christ? Where are our Roads to Emmaus today? Where are the unexpected encounters that open our eyes and change our lives? I’ve found myself on the Road to Emmaus when working in Nashville’s former Tent City.

Advocacy: Tent City

I was introduced to Tent City in the fall of 2008 when I was working as a homeless outreach worker. It was the place for all the people who didn’t fit into society’s boxes. They were the discarded ones who didn’t meet criteria, the couples and pet owners who couldn’t stay at the Mission, the people who had been kicked out of everywhere else. Shortly after I began working with the camp, Metro announced that they were going to bulldoze it. To make a long story short, we launched a campaign to keep the camp open and, to our surprise, Mayor Dean gave Tent City a reprieve.

Now, in this story, I am wary of painting Tent City as some utopian community—it most certainly was not. It was, too often, a violent place where people were beaten and stabbed, where drugs, alcohol, and pit-bull breeding reigned, and where the carcasses of dead rats rotted. It was also, however, the place where I saw more hospitality, community, and self-sacrifice than I’ve seen in many of our churches. Yes, the footpath to Tent City was one of my “Roads to Emmaus” where I met and journeyed with the living Christ and didn’t realize it until later.

You see, while I was doing full-time homeless outreach, my coworkers and I often worked with incredibly vulnerable people who couldn’t access the resources they needed because they didn’t “meet criteria.” These were truly the poorest of the poor and sickest of the sick. The first of three such pariahs was the elderly, uninsured man with Alzheimer’s who forgot who and where he was multiple times a day. The second was the paranoid and gnomish 54-year-old who had the mental capacity of a child… he wasn’t “sick” or “violent” enough for a state hospital and wasn’t “well” enough for other services. The third was the feeble, nearly blind, and disabled man who was told he was a “fire hazard” by the only shelter in town that almost accepted him.

We spent countless hours with each of these men trying to get them the help that they desperately needed, and were turned down by every service provider in Nashville. We were frustrated, burnt out, and utterly sick at the subtle violence of a system that cannot grasp mercy because the barriers of “criteria” and “policy” have grown too thick, too high.

Each time, after we failed to locate resources, the only place we found hospitality was in the margins—specifically in Tent City. Residents of Tent City offered to make space in their camp for each of these men. Two residents even said of the 54-year-old, “He can stay in our ‘hospital wing’ and we’ll make sure he’s safe. We can share our food stamps with him and since church groups come to feed all the time, he’ll be okay.” Indeed, they had a hospital wing in their camp where they once cared for a man who was uninsured and had a broken neck and two broken arms. Other residents of Tent City cared for the man with Alzheimer’s when no one else in our city would.

Even though I was the one who set out to help and heal through my advocacy, it was the witness and hospitality of the residents of Tent City that helped, healed, and challenged me. I was the advocate and activist who helped them save their camp, but they were the ones offering me a glimpse of what the beloved community could look like on earth.

Occupy Nashville arrests, 10/28/11 and 10/29/11

Activism: Occupy and Beyond

So advocating with and caring for the poor and disinherited as the Good Samaritan and the residents from Tent City did is essential. It is so so important. But if we fail to address why so many people are poor and disinherited in the first place, we acquiesce to and participate in their oppression.

In other words, in order to radically love our neighbors, we have to go further than advocacy. As King says, “a religion true to its nature must be…concerned about humanity’s social conditions… with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them.”

And this is where activism comes in. Think about what happened to the disciples on the Road to Emmaus. They were convinced that the person of Jesus was dead and gone and they couldn’t see the bigger picture. They were blind to it until Jesus, in the guise of a stranger, came on the scene and opened their eyes.

And I wonder who and what is helping to open our eyes to the bigger social, political, and economic picture of what is going on in our society today. Could it be that activists and social movements are playing this role? Could the Occupy movement have helped to open our eyes to the increasing power of the 1% and the incredibly destructive effects they have on the 99%? I certainly found myself on the Road to Emmaus when participating in Occupy Nashville. Could groups like Workers’ Dignity, OUR Vanderbilt, and the Student-Farmworker Alliance help us to see that wage theft and the mistreatment of workers is going on right under our noses? Could protesters who are decrying mass incarceration and “stop and frisk” policies be pointing us to the reality that racism is still alive and well in America? Could LGBTQI activists who are pointing out how “marriage equality” still marginalizes queer people of color and trans and genderqueer people be pushing us to continually view history from the underside?

Could activists who are calling for a more just society and putting their bodies on the line to face arrest, pepper spray, job loss, police brutality, and even death be the ones who are helping us to wake up and realize how much work is to be done before the beloved community is realized? Could they be like the stranger on the Road to Emmaus who was going to journey on before the disciples urged him to come in?

The Witness of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I want to suggest that King’s mountaintop speech is also really about his Road to Emmaus. I want to suggest that through his activism and advocacy, his willingness to face arrest, sit in jail, and risk his life, and his willingness to call out an economic system that produces beggars, he found the risen Christ, he experienced a glimpse of the beloved community, and he could say, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

You see, the tremendous suffering in our society, the Road to Emmaus story, and the witness of King call us all to closer proximity to the poor, suffering, and marginalized. They call us to set out on the dusty road, to get our hands dirty, to risk our comfort, to enter into the very suffering we often insulate ourselves from, and to look for the risen Christ in the places and people our society has written off.

Some of the last words of King were directed toward ministers and others who were actively working for justice. On the eve of his assassination, he offered words that speak powerfully to this group of VDS students, faculty, and staff today. Hear the words of King from this extended quote: “We need all of you,” he said. “And you know what’s beautiful to me, is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It’s a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and say, ‘Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream…’”

“It’s alright to talk about ‘long white robes over yonder,’ in all its symbolism. But ultimately, people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It’s alright to talk about ‘streets flowing with milk and honey,’ but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and [the] children who can’t eat three square meals a day. It’s alright to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God’s preacher must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do…”

And “We aren’t going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don’t know what to do. I’ve seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham…when we were in the majestic struggle there [and] we would move out… by the hundreds… And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing. Bull Connor next would say, ‘Turn the fire hoses on.’ And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn’t know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn’t relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out.”

So let us cultivate a kind of fire here that no water can put out. Let us nurture a kind of dangerous unselfishness. Let us fan the flames of hope and resistance. Let us enter into the suffering of the poor and the disinherited. Let us journey beside the stranger and open our eyes to seeing the risen Lord in the most unorthodox people and places. And let us gather the courage not only to put our bodies on the line but to also sit still when all our silence is on fire. Amen.

Likewise, we’ll journey through our city on a spiritual and physical pilgrimage to contemplate what the stations mean for us today and for the marginalized, impoverished, homeless, and condemned in our community. We’ll visit symbolic places where Jesus and the poor continue to be betrayed, condemned, helped, consoled, and crucified like the jail, State Capitol, Legislative Plaza, Courthouse, and downtown churches. We’ll meet at the park on Church Street directly in front of the Downtown Public Library (615 Church St.) at 4:00 p.m. You can park at the library (make sure to have your ticket validated).

You’ll need to wear shoes comfortable for walking and everyone is encouraged to wear black as a sign of mourning. We plan to conclude around 7:30 p.m. If you have questions or would like more information, please e-mail us at nashvillehomelessorganizing@gmail.com.

Here is the Facebook page for this event.

Participating community leaders and groups:

- Rev. Don Beisswenger (Vanderbilt Divinity School professor emeritus, homeless advocate, and author of Locked Up: Letters and Papers of a Prisoner of Conscience)
- Rev. Stacy Rector (Executive Director of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty)
- Ndume Olatushani (former death row inmate who spent 28 years in prison for a crime he did not commit) and Anne-Marie Moyes (Ndume’s partner and the lawyer who helped overturn his case)
- Imam Mohamed Ahmed (Imam at the Islamic Center of Nashville)
- Preston Shipp (prisoner advocate, former prosecutor, and Lipscomb University professor)
- Wayne Walden (formerly homeless vendor of The Contributor)
- Nashville Homeless Organizing Coalition
- Open Table Nashville
- Amos House Community
- Nashville Advocates with the Un-Housed

Yes, Nashville needs to do more blanket drives and yes, we need more shelter beds, but our shelters are overcrowded because of the lack of affordable housing in our city. And our friends are going to keep dying until we, as a city, prioritize safe, accessible, and affordable housing for everyone.

Details:
1) Meet at 8:45 a.m. on Friday, January 18th at Downtown Library Park (615 Church Street)
2) Procession will leave at 9:00 a.m.
3) We will walk one mile to the Homelessness Commission meeting at 700 2nd Ave. South and participate in the meeting. (Those who cannot walk the whole way are invited to join us around 9:15-9:20 a.m. at the corner of Peabody and 2nd.)

What you can do:
Spread the word (everyone is welcome!). Wear black. Bring signs regarding the need for affordable and accessible housing.

Parking:
Park at the downtown library (make sure to get your ticket validated).

Facebook event, click here (Please RSVP here if you can)

Participating groups: Nashville Advocates with the Un-housed (NAU), Nashville Housing Rights Campaign (NHRC), Amos House Community, East Nashville Cooperative Ministry (ENCM), independent homeless and formerly homeless advocates, outreach workers from Open Table and other groups, students from Lipscomb, Vanderbilt, and American Bible College, and other concerned community members. (Please let us know if you would like us to add your group’s name to this list.)

“Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵ for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶ I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ ³⁷ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?³⁸ And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹ And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ ⁴⁰ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,^[g] you did it to me.’ ⁴¹ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴² for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ ⁴⁵ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Matthew 25:34-36

Now you may be wondering why I just included that passage for an entry at this time of year. It’s not a typical passage read before, during, or after Christmas. It doesn’t usually remind us of little baby Jesus and the manger and the cute animals, and it’s not even a passage read for Epiphany (if you’re that into the church calendar.) It’s not really a passage read with any church holiday, and we don’t really hear much about it in today’s church culture anyway. But I would like to argue that actually this passage is full of the Christmas spirit and even that of Epiphany. On a deeper note, I would like to argue that it is one of the most important parts of scripture for Christians.

Through the season of Advent and Christmas, we are surrounded the concept of “searching” for Christ. Herod sought after Christ so that he could kill him rather than worship him. The shepherds and the magi sought after Christ because of prophecies and signs of the stars and so on. Simeon and Anna sought after Christ, and today we are still searching for Christ. So much in our culture we hear about people trying to “find God”, to “get closer to God”, about people trying to “see God’s face”. Our hymns cry out for “just a closer walk with thee”, our prayers are peppered with statements of “God, come into my life”, and “Lord, I wanna know you better.” Well, Today in this last Sunday of the year and the Sunday before the Epiphany, we will close out our searching for God with the solution on how to find and where to find God.

In the scripture read, we heard Jesus identify with the poor—“whatever you do to them, however you treat them is how you treat me.” He wasn’t being cute or sentimental here—Jesus really was poor. Dirt poor actually. Let’s take another look at the Nativity story with new eyes with an excerpt from an essay wrote by Dan R. Dick.

“Picture Mary.  What images come to mind?  The “wise” men?  The shepherds?  The stable and manger?  The immaculately clean, well-behaved, reverent animals in western style stalls?  The star in the sky?  Joseph?  The mean old inn-keeper?  In its simplicity it is a sweet, gentle, kind, lovely story.  Just the kind we love — don’t nobody mess it up! ….

“[What was the Nativity really like?] Modern American society may be incapable of comprehending rural life in ancient times, foreign places. Back then life was hand-to-mouth existence in large extended families that mainly never ventured more than a few miles from home.  Tiny stone dwellings with dirt floors crammed together with no spaces in between, housed hundreds of people with virtually no more than a couple of square feet to a person.  Clean water was rare, so personal hygiene was scarce and water-born disease rampant.  Bathing was not viewed as necessary; in fact, it wasn’t believed to be good for you.  No electricity, no indoor plumbing, and no modern conveniences are given, but lamp oil was at a premium and not used widely by the rural poor — who accounted for upwards of 80% of the population.  Life happened between sunrise and sunset, and it was filled with non-stop hours of hard labor and toil, for most children as well as adults.  Injury, loss of limbs, digits, eyes, and disfigurations were all a simple part of normal life.  Early medicine was crude, and while we would like to visualize a wise homeopathy, the reality is that as many patients were killed as cured by well-intentioned hokum and hoodoo passing as science.  Women outnumbered men about two-to-one due to work related death, disease, conscription into military service and ordinary violence.  Often girls were promised to multiple men to adjust for the odds of survival.  Most men didn’t really know the girls who were promised to them — males and females rarely interacted in any social form.  Travel was unsafe, except in large groups.  Bandits, rebels, zealots, thieves and the mentally unstable (and demon possessed) roamed freely and left few witnesses to their work.  Mortality rates were high, and the average life span was less than four decades.  We often think of Jesus dying young at 33, but this placed him well within the mid-section of the bell curve of his day.  A fifty-year old was a rarity and a sixty-year old was an ancient miracle.  Most of the rural poor were simple, in every sense of the word.  They were uneducated and superstitious.  They owned few possessions.  They subsisted on what they could produce with their own hands.  Skulls from the period show that few retained many of their teeth into adulthood.  Vermin — insect and mammal — coexisted in every home and on every person.  Young women were promised to older men as quickly as possible because of simple supply and demand factors.  It was not unusual for families to broker marriages when girls were eight or nine with the promise of marriage at their very first menses.  Childbirth began as soon after as possible, and with infant mortality as high as 60% in some regions, women gave birth at least annually in hopes of producing a sizeable enough family that could work for survival.

“What might all of this suggest about Mary, a poor girl from Nazareth?  I imagine most of us do not picture a timid, dirty teenager with ratty hair, rotting teeth, a ruddy complexion, thick muscled arms, calloused hands, unable to clearly articulate all the things happening to her.  Chances are Mary had known Joseph since her early childhood, but that they had very little interaction until she hit puberty.  We miss the fact that the greatest miracle in the story may have been that Mary was not put to death when it was discovered she was pregnant.  The killing of a young woman for infidelity and/or adultery was a common, emotionless, practical necessity.  Paternal lineage was everything in some rural cultures, and women were merely vessels of transmission of property.  Spoiled property was disposed of.  Such an act caused no emotional upheaval; it was just a part of normal life.  Mary’s visit to Elizabeth would not have been anything short of a necessity — if Joseph didn’t address Mary’s situation, any of the elders of the community could force the issue.  Mary’s life, if she were a member of her culture, would be pregnancy after pregnancy while toiling in home and field from sun-up to sun-down.  If Mark’s report that Jesus had four brothers and at least two sisters is true, it is not unreasonable to assume that Mary gave birth at least twelve to fifteen times in order to have seven surviving offspring.  None of the subsequent births would rival the first however, but not because the first was Jesus, but because mother and child beat all odds of survival in the septic and toxic environment of a public stable.  An “inn” in early Palestine was a fairly large room with shelves hewn into rock walls.  Travellers supplied their own bedding or paid exorbitant prices for straw, generally not clean.  Pots and barrels were provided for excrement and urine, but inn keepers rarely emptied them — “guests” took care of them when they became intolerable.  Rats, mice, bats, fleas, and lice were constant companions to travellers.  Most inns provided no food.  When beds were filled, surrounding fields were offered, usually at a reduced rate.  As a last resort, or in the case of foul weather, the “stable” was available.  Many animals stayed outside, but valued animals like oxen and donkeys were crammed into a small, windowless room attached to the inn.  The lack of windows was a discouragement to thieves and poachers, and the access to the inn was so that the heat from the animals would warm the guests.  Can you imagine the smells? Mangers — feed boxes of extremely crude and coarse design — were scattered throughout and were used only when the “guests” at the inn paid for the feed.  The poorest of the poor squeezed in amongst the animals, seeking patches not covered in filth and where they might not be trampled.  Dozens of people would huddle in these abysmally dark, hot, dirty rooms until sunrise.  And who would end up as “the poorest of the poor?”  Simple tradespeople (like carpenters) would qualify, as would shepherds, as would sorcerers (or magi, if you will).  Prostitutes and tax-collectors would be welcome in the inn — they could pay.  It would not be unusual on any given night to find poor rural travellers elbow to elbow with shepherds and those who dabbled in magic — outcasts all.

“I shared all of this with a friend of mine from a Catholic background and watched him turn purple with indignation and rage.  He told me what a load of crap this was and it crossed the line into blasphemy.  He recommended I look at some “catholic scholarship” on Mary for a more accurate and acceptable description of the Nativity.  For him, this was a critical issue of belief and the sanctity of all he holds dear.  According to Catholic doctrine, Mary, the product of immaculate conception herself, came from a wealthy and genteel family.  Clean, educated, pious, and good, Mary from birth lived an other-worldly existence that prepared her to be the perfect vessel for divinity.  Fair-skinned, bright-eyed, with luxuriant hair, Mary shone with the light of heaven.  Joseph was selected to serve and protect Mary, and all of her births were miraculous, allowing her to remain a virgin.  She never died, but ascended, carrying with her the knowledge of God, the wisdom of the ages, and the treasures of her heart.  In my readings, all the Catholic scholars reference earlier Catholic scholars, and very few use the scriptures at all in their descriptions.  Most sources are extra-canonical and the documentation is of Catholic doctrine, conceived from mystic experience and divine revelation.  There is an amazing reverence and respect in the Catholic Mariology, but little true scholarship.”

Jeannie Alexander offers another perspective in this past Amos House blog. She tells the story:

“The expectant homeless mother had pondered the birth of her child for weeks. Where would he be born? Would he be safe? Where would she take him? Who would help her? Where on earth would they go? Her partner, equally anxious, had taken the woman as his wife months earlier, knowing that the child growing inside of her was not his own. He had promised to care for them, but they were sojourners, strangers in a strange land. The time of census approached, and so they set off across the country, mostly on foot, toward the town of his birth. Unsure of the future, but hoping for the best, they prayed for guidance and safe passage.

“Throughout their journey the lonely couple strove to avoid the authorities and bandits alike. The woman’s increasingly fragile state made them vulnerable to attack, and their very existence made them a target for the authorities, for they were marginalized people not of the dominant ruling class. Apart from their own people they were considered dirty and suspect, their customs strange. 

“Finally the beleaguered pair arrived in the bustling town, a town that looked to hold so much promise and prospects for the future. Weary and burdened by the pronounced heaviness of her belly, the woman longed for refuge and a safe warm place to birth her child. They began to search patiently at first for a home or temporary housing, but as time wore on fear and anxiety set in and they became frantic in their search for sanctuary.

“Alone and afraid in the cold of 3:00 a.m., during the dark time of the year, the couple had to face the fact that there was no room at any inn. A sharp cry cracked open the night, and beneath a star, out-of-doors, a child was born.

“Are you familiar with this story? Have you heard it your whole life long? You know it better than you think; it is closer than you know. For you see, this is early in the morning during the first week of November 2009, where a child was born on the streets of Nashville; directly onto the rat infested, stinking, filthy, street of Second Avenue in downtown. The couple and the journey described above are not the beloved Joseph and Mary of 2,000 years ago, it is the story of a homeless couple in our time, at this moment, in Nashville, the city too busy to care. 

“The poor couple waited for months for subsidized housing. They jumped through every hoop, made every appointment, obtained every document, and still they waited. The woman was assured that she would be housed rapidly because she was great with child. (How could she know that the waiting list is over 3,000 broken souls long?). But the weeks turned into months, and during that time they stayed in cheap, bed bug infested motels when they could, and slept under bridges when they could not. 

“Of course, they tried other avenues, other organizations, but instead of open doors and warm beds, they found themselves at the end of even more waiting lists, or were told that they ‘did not meet criteria.’ Ah ‘criteria’, the word that allows us to shed our responsibilities toward other human beings.”

Jesus identified with the poor because he was one of them, and he never left them either in his ministry. Born a carpenter’s son, he would have remained a carpenter, which was the lowliest of the low, not even considered a skilled artisan or tradesman. And even when he began his ministry, from then on until his death he was a homeless vagrant traveling around in circles and never settling in one place. He wouldn’t even find a home or settling place inside of the borrowed tomb they laid him in, for as Jesus said in Luke chapter nine verse 58, “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

So far, we have looked at searching for God and finding the poor in Christ. Now, we will discuss finding Christ in the poor.

For some of us, the most we see or interact with the poorest of the poor is at intersections. When I grew up, my family would spend a lot of time downtown or in Antioch a minute or so from my house, and often we would end up at a red light intersection turning left. There would almost always be a homeless person standing at the edge of the grass, holding a makeshift sign explaining their needs, begging for loose change and thank you, God bless. As if with no thought, my parents, or really anybody I was driving with, would always roll up the windows, lock the doors, and stare straight ahead as if a human being, a child of God were not standing outside of the window. As if they weren’t even there. As if they were invisible. My mother always taught me never to judge homeless people or assume anything about their life, but this mannerism seemed to paint a different belief about the poor than the one she was telling me. Even today I am still shaking off this reflex to be afraid of the poor, shaking off this reflex of fear of the person at the intersection quietly begging for loose change. And over time, it becomes easier and easier to roll down my window, look them in the eye, ask them their name, shake their hand, and treat them like the human being, the child of God they are. With each small interaction of the 30 seconds I have at the red light, a little bit of reconciliation happens and a little bit of fear dissipates. Even small interactions like this signify how we view Christ- if Christ came back today, would we recognize him or would we be afraid and shun him like we shun the homeless every day? Hebrews 13:2 says “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that, some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

Recently, I was in Atlanta visiting an organization called the Open Door Community that, for over 30 years, has done life and ministry with the poor, the oppressed, and the prisoner of Atlanta. In one of their hallways, they have large black and white photographs of their friends from the streets and prisons over the years. Even if most of them lived and died on the streets, all of them found love and hospitality at the Open Door. In each photograph, in the eyes of every person, you see warmth. You see laughter. You see personalities, stories, histories. You see compassion and you see tender souls. But more than anything, you see and hear a Spirit’s voice. You cannot tell if this Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, or the Spirit of the Person. It is completely indistinguishable (and ultimately an unimportant distinction). And the voice says pleading, urging, begging, “What are you doing? What are you doing for me? Have mercy on me. Have mercy. What are you doing for me?”

In our culture, this question has almost a clearly negative connotation. We hear all the time the news pundits reducing this question of mercy into a question of politics, of social strata, of trivializing the poor. You hear arguments of people saying “Oh, they’re so entitled! They don’t want to work! They got themselves in that situation. It’s their own fault. They’re just addicts or alcoholics or schizophrenics or welfare abusers. They don’t deserve anything from me and they certainly are not getting anything from me!” You hear labels and name calling. You hear assumptions, and judgment. You hear hate, utter hate. There is no compassion or even remote understanding in these words. And I will admit I was raised with this suspicion, with this skeptical and reducing attitude. But then I began to wonder, what if we said those same words to Christ? What if we have been saying them to Christ’s face all along? What if we have been shaming and shunning angels without realizing it? How we treat the least of these, or in other words, the “scum of the earth” as society labels them, is exactly how we are treating Christ.

Not to mention the phrase “God helps those who helps themselves” is found nowhere in the Bible. Because that is not God’s model. Instead, the Bible paints a picture all over that humans are meant to rely on each other, care for each other, and to let others care for them too. When Jesus saw that someone was sick, he didn’t ask questions. He healed them. When he saw someone hungry, he didn’t make any judgments. He just fed them. Not only that, but he made it a feast for everyone, for him, the disciples, and 5000 or more hungry folk. The feeding was not an arbitrary, distant act of charity, it became a communal round table where everyone’s needs were met without judgment or suspicion, or dehumanizing people with documents and numbers. Furthermore, Jesus didn’t fail to ask for food from his friends when he was hungry after the resurrection and a long walk on Emmaus Road.

“What are you doing for me?” “What are you doing for me?” The photographs asked. “What are you doing to ease my plight? What are you doing to change the system that damns me to live and die on the streets? What are you doing to quiet the voices in my head, quiet the rumble in my children’s bellies, to quiet the rasp in my dry throat, to bring peace into my life?” This is not to say that the poor of the world need to be saved or rescued by rich people. That paternalistic and savior mentality has brought about much evil by well-intentioned people in forms such as colonialism, imperialism, the White Man’s Burden, and other various forms of proselytizing. Lilla Watson, an aboriginal activist sister, once said, “If you’ve come to help me, you’re wasting your time. But if you’ve come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” No, this is not about “helping people”.  We need relationships, not distant charity. We need community, not subject-object interactions. We need love. Real love. Not shallow niceties. When the Vagrant Christ Spirit cries out to us, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO LESSEN THE HELL IN MY LIFE?!” We respond with humility and powerful love that breaks down barriers, divisions, and opens up pathways for healing of physical and spiritual needs for both parties as well as a healing of broken mindsets and systems that makes us suspicious instead of compassionate. In doing so, we bring about the Kingdom of God.

It is Christ who meets us here.

Instead of distance, let’s have proximity. Instead of distancing ourselves from the poor, seeing only the differences, seeing the starkness of a life of striving to SURVIVE instead of thrive…we enter into proximity with the poor of the world, drawing so close the clear distinction of the margins disappears. We enter into proximity and share our lives together. In doing so, we become brothers and sisters.

It is Christ who meets us here.

Instead of trivialization, let’s have validation. Instead of trivializing them into a political problem, a social issue, a statistic, or an object to use for our egos to feel good so we can feel like we’re good people…we give validation as we begin to understand the stories and struggles of our brothers and sisters. We ourselves experience validation as we realize that humans were made for more than a fabricated system defining our worth by possessions and successes, and trade in this illusion for validating love and community. Through this we begin to be reconciled to one another and to God, for love covers a multitude of sins.

It is Christ who I met on my Christmas Eve. Working a warming shelter downtown *seemed* to be a somewhat non-traditional way to await the birth of Christ. I mostly just watched friends from the streets beat the cold and sleep. The night wore on with choruses of hacking coughs instead of carols of “O Holy Night”, and even then, we had to turn people away at the door because there was no more floor space. (Even 2000 years later, there is still no room in the inn.) But while I was in that room, I was transported back to the manger. Staring at the lights from a Christmas tree next to a couple squished together on a twin air mattress so that neither of them would have to sleep on the lukewarm concrete, I couldn’t have been closer to Christ.

It is here where Christ comes to say, “Hello, have you got any more room?” It is here where we see Christ’s face, that may need a little shave or a wash. It is here where we shake Christ’s hand, which was just scrounging in a trashcan for the leftovers of your last meal. It is here where we learn Christ’s name- Cecil, Woodstock, Ken, Pete, Danny, Eric, Betty, Nate, Robert, Terrell, Teardrop, Country, Wendell. It is here where a mattress, a tarp, a bed sheet, and a throw pillow become our tithe, become our frankincense, and become our myrrh.

My challenge for you this new year is to stop searching for Christ. Seriously. Stop it. Christ is not lost, and he’s not far from you. He’s down on the Bell Road interstate exit, he’s down on Dickerson Pike, he’s down on Nolensville Road, he’s living in your nearest flea-bitten motel, he’s living under your bridge. Your challenge is to instead SEE Christ, for he is right in front of you.

See Christ the vagrant, for just as he traveled around Judea and Samaria for decades without a place to lay his head, he is in the person walking the streets making their bed out of cardboard and out of eyesight.

See Christ the homeless child to the unwed teenage mother, born in the manger or in the public housing projects.

See Christ the undocumented immigrant running away from Herod into Egypt to escape death and genocide, or maybe he’s running away from the drug cartels of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico into America to have a safe childhood.

See Christ awaiting his execution date as he explains to his disciples that he will soon be put to death, just as the 87 men and one woman await their executions on Tennessee’s death row forty minutes from this very spot.

See Christ on the cross awaiting the puncture of the spear into his side, or Christ on the gurney awaiting the lethal injection into his arm, crying out “OH GOD, FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO, OH GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?!”

It is Christ who meets us here. In the projects, in the public hospital, on the streets, it is Christ who meets us here. In the pine box, in the unmarked grave, the execution chamber, it is Christ who meets us here. In the prison cell, the warming shelter, under the bridge, in the crack house, in the rehab center, it is Christ who meets us here.

He is not hiding. He is not lost. He is not missing.

He is born. Christ is come, and he is waiting for you at the margins.

Howard Thurman wrote,

“When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers [and sisters],
To make music in the heart.”

Amen and may it be so.

Today we will vote or not vote, and someone will be elected to lead our country.  And still – to the children of distant lands and children of our own land, in the bodies of women, on the backs of the poor, in the souls of men, and  to the earth herself – still unspeakable violence will be done. Our hope cannot rest in elected officials.

Yes, our choices today, and especially the intentions and consciousness they spring from, matter. But forget the noise and distraction of Right or Left; both are Babylon. As people of faith, Election Day is such a tiny piece (much more the beginning than the end) of our work in the world. Let this be our real work – to use up our lives every day casting a vote for Justice over Comfort, Mercy over Power, Community over Self, Love over Fear, Life over Death.

I think Wendell Berry says it best – so here, a poem (and a prayer) for your thoughts (and your actions) today (and every day):

The Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union

From the union of power and money,
From the union of power and secrecy,
From the union of government and science,
From the union of government and art,
From the union of science and money,
From the union of ambition and ignorance,
From the union of genius and war,
From the union of outer space and inner vacuity,
The Mad Farmer walks quietly away.

There is only one of him, but he goes.
He returns to the small country he calls home,
His own nation small enough to walk across.
He goes shadowy into the local woods,
And brightly into the local meadows and croplands.
He goes to the care of neighbors,
He goes into the care of neighbors.
He goes to the potluck supper, a dish
From each house for the hunger of every house.
He goes into the quiet of early mornings
Of days when he is not going anywhere.

Calling his neighbors together in to the sanctity
Of their lives separate and together
In the one life of the commonwealth and home,
In their own nation small enough for a story
Or song to travel across in an hour, he cries:

Come all ye conservatives and liberals
Who want to conserve the good things and be free,
Come away from the merchants of big answers,
Whose hands are metalled with power;
From the union of anywhere and everywhere
By the purchase of everything from everybody at the lowest price
And the sale of anything to anybody at the highest price;
From the union of work and debt, work and despair;
From the wage-slavery of the helplessly well-employed.

From the union of self-gratification and self-annihilation,
Secede into the care for one another
And for the good gifts of Heaven and Earth.

Come into the life of the body, the one body
Granted to you in all the history of time.
Come into the body’s economy, its daily work,
And its replenishment at mealtimes and at night.
Come into the body’s thanksgiving, when it knows
And acknowledges itself a living soul.
Come into the dance of the community, joined
In a circle, hand in hand, the dance of the eternal
Love of women and men for one another
And of neighbors and friends for one another.

Always disappearing, always returning,
Calling his neighbors to return, to think again
Of the care of flocks and herds, of gardens
And fields, of woodlots and forests and the uncut groves,
Calling them separately and together, calling and calling,
He goes forever toward the long restful evening
And the croak of the night heron over the river at dark.

Last week, the Nashville Scene published a story that brings to light a great injustice facing some of the most economically vulnerable and voiceless members of our community –– the problem of slumlords in low-income housing. This article highlights the tenants at Lexington Gardens Apartments in Madison, TN, who are being systematically taken advantage of by their landlady. They live with busted windows and doors, bed bug & cockroach infestations, substandard electrical wiring, sewage leaking from upstairs apartments, and the subsequent mold it trails across ceilings and walls. Although we have systems in place that were created to protect the rights of these tenants, like Metro Health/Codes Department, we find that again and again, these marginalized voices are dismissed by the very agencies intended to serve them because the needs and concerns of the community’s wealthier citizens take priority over the needs of those struggling in poverty.

“Why don’t they just move somewhere else?”

Well, that’s easier said than done. Let us imagine for a moment that our city had enough affordable housing available to shelter everyone in need –– even so, in Davidson County, the Fair Market Rent (FMR) for a two-bedroom apartment is $751/mo*. In order to afford this level of rent and utilities, without being cost burdened (which means paying more than 30% of income on housing), a household must earn at least $30,040 annually or approximately $15.65/hr (assuming full-time work). In this time of economic depression, many low-income households are lucky to find part-time work in a minimum wage ($7.25/hr) service industry; to pay FMR for a two-bedroom apartment without being cost burdened, a minimum wage earner would have to work 86 hours per week.

A tenant’s busted front door

As if earning enough to pay rent every month wasn’t hard enough, in order to relocate, tenants must have enough saved to pay the 1st month’s rent, a deposit, fees for turning on utilities, and the cost of actually moving (Consider: How do you move when you don’t own a car? How can you take time off from a minimum wage service job?) –– all of this assuming they have good credit and no criminal record. Often low-income households and the working poor move into slums because there are vacancies (high turnover) and no credit checks. They get trapped because our city lacks sufficient affordable housing and because living paycheck to paycheck does not afford the luxury of saving for a move up. Tenants in this situation are often a car breakdown or  a week with the flu away from being homeless, and slumlords prey on this vulnerability.

These are the people society pushes to the margins for fear of being contaminated by poverty, but they are our brothers and sisters, and they need us to stand with them now as they assert their rights to live in safety, without fear of people breaking in because their doors and windows are busted –– without fear that their children are being feasted on by bed bugs while they sleep, or that they will be put on the streets by a landlady seeking revenge for their drawing attention to this injustice. Visit the website Lexington Gardens Revealed to see pictures of the living conditions these folks face everyday, read their stories, and learn more about what you can do to help make this right.

Child at Lexington Gardens covered in bed bug bites

HOW TO HELP

Please join Amos House in standing in solidarity with the people of Lexington Gardens. Use your voice to advocate with them by calling Metro Codes Department. Below is the information from the website about how you can help:

Contact Nashville Metro Codes Hotline (615) 862-6590.

Or send a fax to (615) 862-6593.

Or send email to bill.penn@nashville.gov. Bill Penn is the Assistant Director of the Property Standards Division. Bill supervises the Property Standards inspection staff and is the program manager for the NOTICE program, a community support program designed to provide direct involvement of citizens in the code enforcement process.

Please be polite. Express your concern that Lexington Gardens, 335 Forest Park Road, is not in compliance with Metro requirements for buildings to be in a good general state of repair and maintained in a clean, safe and sanitary condition. Request that Codes conduct a full inspection, including every unit on the property, and issue abatement notices for the prompt correction of every violation discovered.

If asked for details, you can say that Codes already has over 20 complaints that they can refer to, and tenants are reluctant to submit more complaints due to fear of retaliation.

*As determined by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development FY2012 Office of Management and Budget.

I am my father’s daughter. Among all of the things he has passed onto me, besides a love for punk music and Mel Brooks films, he has taught me to love and appreciate nature. When I was a teenager he started taking me on hikes. While he spent his childhood summers on a farm in Stewart County, I have grown up 20 minutes outside of downtown Nashville- he used to hold it against me that I couldn’t walk in the woods without waking up every creature possible. Over time he has taught me how to hike, and how to hike well. He taught me the exact ways to place your feet when trekking up a hill of mud and wet leaves, and how to strategically scale the side of a baby limestone drop-off. However, I think some of the most invaluable lessons he’s taught me through hiking is how to be quiet. Not just be quiet, but also be silent. Not just be silent, but also be still. Not just be still, but to pay attention. To slow down and to wait. To not expect anything, but to observe.

Early this month, my father and I took a couple of hikes at Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park in Manchester. I have hiked the trails there so many times over the years I have them memorized. I have memorized the bark and lean of some of the thousand-year-old trees, the way the river flows, the way the sunlight falls through the trees, and various landmarks along the way. However, on this particular day, I noticed some things I had never taken notice of before- there were mushrooms everywhere.

The trail was damp because of some intense storms the night before, so the air had a fresh aura of decay about it as we walked along the trail of mushrooms. Here and there, I would spot bigger mushrooms- the fat red ones that look like they came straight out of a Mario videogame, the skinny white ones that stretch really tall, and the ugly, flimsy beige ones that look beaten up and bruised. Every now and then I would stop on the trail and just stare at the dirt below my feet and realize I was looking at dozens of mushrooms creeping out of the soil. Of course, this reminded me of my 10^th grade biology class when we learned about detritus feeders.

Before I go on, let me say this- I was not raised in the church. For most of my childhood, my parents were skeptics and my father’s intensely analytical and scientific mind influenced me. His math and science skills were never passed onto me- I’m going into ministry for a reason- but my father’s teaching me about the mysteries of nature and our environment completely shaped the way I viewed my faith when I became a Christian at age 16. At the time, I had no idea whether I believed in God or not; either way I knew the power and beauty of nature was very great on these hikes and that this was fodder for both arguments in my mind.

Now, back to 10^th grade biology class. This was the class I was taking when I was in the middle of teetering between becoming a Christian and declaring atheism. The only part of the class I liked was when we learned about ecology, nature’s carrying capacity, and of course the food chain in ecosystems. My favorite part was and is the detritus feeders. Basically, in any ecosystem, things are born and things die eventually. Eventually this dead matter piles up and accumulates through decomposition. It breaks down and becomes nutrients to sustain further life. However, none of this can happen if there are no detritus feeders (and scavengers). Detritus feeders are the organisms that basically eat up all of the waste and turn it into those nutrients. In a spiritual sense, they turn death back into life.

Alright, enough of the head-hurting biology talk and back to the little mushrooms. Mushrooms are my most favorite detritus feeder because let’s be honest, they are super cute and adorable and are also really productive little suckers. As I was walking along the path and seeing literally hundreds of mushrooms springing up in the wake of the storms that finally made the soil wet enough for decomposition to take place, I was inspired by those mushroom’s dedication. Just imagine- if these mushrooms were not here in this forest full of dead leaves, the fallen leaves and rotting logs would just pile up. They would not decay if there weren’t detritus feeders like mushrooms to aid in that decomposition. Our entire world, if it weren’t for scavengers and detritus feeders, would be perpetually full of waste. It would just accumulate. Now, I know I’m not a biologist, so I will take the liberty to imagine that the world would probably implode as a result of all this waste build-up.

Now, how does this relate to God? In my mind, mushrooms and detritus feeders are a complete symbol of resurrection. Resurrection is at the heart of the Christian Gospel- I will be so ambitious to say that Jesus could die on the cross all day long and forgive every sin many times over, but if that tomb is not empty the next day, it means nothing. That empty tomb means we have hope. Our world is so broken, and all you have to do is watch the news, or walk in a forest in the fall, to see all the decay around you. But the empty tomb signifies the story isn’t over- Christ is alive. What was death and defeat is now new life. Our spiritual and physical deaths are not the end of the story- there is new life here on Earth. This is our hope and this is our Good News. This is our Gospel.

So it is with mushrooms. The presence of a mushroom, even the tiniest speck on a giant mossy log, proclaims that it is there to bring life. The mushroom takes the death and waste into itself and gives off nutrients to support life again. Imagine that the mushroom is the sacrificial lamb of the forest, the Messiahs of the forest if you will. If it weren’t for the mushrooms, there would be no hope for sustained life in the forest.

I leave you with a challenge and a meditation- go find a mushroom proclaiming life in the ground. I want you to look underneath the mushroom cap and see the endless little gills the spread out from the stem. The exactness of the mushroom’s design, no matter how small, has always spoken volumes to me. If the Divine Force amongst us can carefully craft together a teeny, intricate mushroom and give it the important job of being a force of resurrection to a trivial bit of soil, surely The Spirit has enough time for you, your stresses, your choices, your plans, your thoughts, and your fears. If the Spirit can attend to the littlest mushrooms, the Spirit can and will attend to you.

Christ of Maryknoll, by Robert Lentz

This summer I read Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality by social psychologist, professor, and ad hoc theologian, Richard Beck. The book is great, and I’m tempted to rehash it page by page here, but, alas! the summaries and reviews (like this one) have already been sufficiently written. In short, Beck devotes an entire book to going and learning what Jesus means in Matthew 9:13 when he tells the Pharisees, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Beck explores our impulse as human bodies and as members of the body of Christ to prioritize rituals, purity laws, and exclusion over practicing compassion and embrace. Beck walks us through the physical, social, and spiritual origins and implications of the psychology of disgust. He asks us to consider what compels us to exclude the Other and how we can cultivate what Miroslav Volf refers to as a “will to embrace” – holding radical inclusion in tension with whatever it means to be holy and set apart. Tons of fascinating stuff here; go forth and read the book in its entirety for yourself.

In Part 3 of the book, Beck considers Jesus’ call for mercy instead of sacrifice in terms of hospitality towards the Other, and eventually calls into question our psychological and societal need to create monsters and scapegoats out of other people and groups. He explains that our moral faculties begin to take shape before we are even cognizant and go on to affect us in ways we are often not aware of. Our sociomoral disgust around ideas of “otherness” begins forming as soon as we enter the world; as infants we begin to differentiate between our family/kin (our kind) and “non-kin.” This begins with our biological families and expands to include other friends as we grow. After we identify our kind or who is in our “moral circle,” we instinctively show warmth, love, and kind-ness. “Otherness” is lost within the moral circle because we accept kin as an extension of ourselves.

But what about everyone else? Beck uses an example of restaurant waitstaff to illustrate his point. Say you have a friend with a new job as a waitress, so on her first night waiting tables you gather a group of your friends to eat at her restaurant, planning to celebrate her new job and leave a hefty tip as encouragement. Once you are all seated the waitress friend comes to your table frazzled because the restaurant is especially busy, everything is new, and she has several tables of demanding customers. Do you demand excellent service and extra attention? Of course not. You order simply, tell her she’s doing great, and then leave a big tip anyway. How does this scenario work out differently when you show up at a busy restaurant with a waitress you’ve never met? What’s the difference? The first waitress was a friend – someone included in your moral circle, thus someone you treat with warmth and equal humanity. The second waitress is a stranger; we don’t know what she hopes for, what she goes home to, or any of the ways she is like us, so we’re comfortable with seeing her pragmatically – as the facilitator of our meal. We treat strangers, anyone outside of our moral circle, as means used to accomplish our goals in the world. Beck points out that this practice unfortunately supports Claude Levi-Strauss’ assertion that “Humankind ceases at the border of the tribe.”

Beck goes on to explain that in times of great societal fear and stress we tighten the moral circle and look with a more critical or suspicious eye at all the others outside our circle, needing a common monster or enemy to be unified against. We begin by believing an Other is lacking in some defining human quality (maybe intellectually or emotionally) and is thus inferior. Then we create in our minds essential differences between the groups that allow us to keep them separate – a frame of infrahumanization – which opens the doors for the practice of dehumanizing these Others, whittling them down into scapegoats and monsters, convenient recipients of our frustration and rage.

It’s all too easy to name examples of infrahumanized groups, but one in particular has been close to my heart for the past 6 months and likely the reason I keep coming back to this chapter of Unclean. In late February and again in May, I was fortunate enough to listen to Kathy Kelly speak. She is a co-founder of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and has been leading peacemaking efforts in the Middle East since 1990. She shared a lot of facts and analysis, but most importantly for me, she told stories. She told about people and families she knows (and in many cases did know before their lives were taken by violence) – people she can name and see and touch, who are made of the same things I am made of, and who are living lives as real and as important as mine. Listening to her I realized that I can rattle off stats about cost, casualties, and policies, but I have no real sense of connection to the actual humans whose lives begin and end in that war zone everyday.

By Robert Shetterly

Kelly told the stories we don’t hear in the news – because our perceptions of these Others are carefully filtered, packaged and delivered to us for consumption by systems and powers that honor profit over human life. The news media inundates us with stories and images depicting our political enemies as lesser forms of humanity until our collective subconscious and vocabulary slip into infrahumanizing these Others, effectively making them monsters. Who does this benefit? We celebrate un-manned drones that allow US armed forces to drop bombs on “suspicious activity” from the safety of a desk in Nevada, but in 2012 military suicides have skyrocketed to an average of 1 active duty soldier and 18 veterans per day. We use phrases like “freedom,” “national security,” or “necessary evil,” but destroying whole villages, families, and children does not make anyone free or secure, and this evil is only ever evil; carrying it out is making us sick – to the point of suicide. Perhaps our humanity dies a little every time we steal it from Others.

But our knowing this will not save children or end wars.

We can’t expect justice or peace to come out of the State unless we are cultivating it and being transformed within ourselves first. What are we doing to resist the way our understanding of kinship is shaped? Are we taking responsibility to do the work of un-learning within ourselves? Before we can love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves, we need to re-learn the humanity of our neighbors. Much of my thinking on this throughout the summer has been framed by a quote from a dear author, Margaret Atwood, who writes:

“Oppression involves a failure of the imagination: the failure to imagine the full humanity of other human beings.”

If we do not incite our imagination to extend kinship to the Other in Kabul or Islamabad, where else will we find images that reinforce our shared humanity? If we are socially and to some degree biologically predisposed to see the Others of the world as somehow separate, it seems that the work of honoring the full humanity of others will come down to our willingness and ability to imagine it first.

I’ve been trying to build this into my consciousness over the last 3 months. Some of it is trivial enough that it’s awkward to admit to the whole internet, but it starts with practices as simple as eating my cereal in the morning and wondering what might be going on in the lives of Afghan families as they gather at the same time for their evening meal. Or maybe as I fill my tank with gasoline, I take a moment to consider how it may have come to me or the human cost involved in my driving around town. (And then I regret using language of “cost” to talk about human lives.)

But I also try to carve out a more intentional thinking space each week. I prefer to sit in the dark at the foot of my bed and light a candle. For a while I am very quiet. Then I begin to create a landscape in my mind – scrub trees, mud houses, everything the color of sand. I think of stories I have heard or read from Kelly and others; I call to mind the names of real people and I try to see a family I don’t know laughing around their dinner table, or going to the market, or saying bedtime prayers with their children. I try to fill them in with gifts and vices – let them be great at telling jokes or quick to lose their temper in an argument. I try to imagine what they pray for, feel them longing for peace, and see them worrying when there isn’t enough money or enough food. And while I am nestled safely in the comfort of my bedroom, I try to fathom the fear that must be ever present because during the day Taliban soldiers knock on their doors demanding food and shelter, and at night US bombs fall from the sky. I think of people who are precious to me, and I imagine them being senselessly blown up, gunned down, or starving slowly. I think of children I would die for and then try to feel what it would be like, what it is like, for parents to watch their children get mutilated or killed by our remote controlled bombs or slowly waste away because war has ravaged their land and economy. They are gutted by pain, and I am complicit.

I can no longer not be moved by this. Sometimes I come up with words to pray, but usually this meditation – this being present – is the truest kind of prayer I know how to offer. I wish I could say that all of my sitting in the dark and thinking about people had resulted in fewer of those people dying or living miserably everyday. The truth is that it wrecks me sometimes. Whenever I read about the latest airstrike, my chest tightens. I spend a lot more time feeling sad, (doesn’t this make you want to go out and try it for yourself?), but I’m taking it as a gift. Beloved priest and peace activist Daniel Berrigan once said that peacemaking begins with grief, and I am growing more comfortable with grief.

But this is such a small gesture. I don’t mean to give a naive “we should all work on being nicer to each other” kind of answer for the problems of violence and war. Nothing about this is simple or tidy. But this convergence of imagination and grief could be a starting place for the inner work of consciousness shifting and re-humanizing those groups we’ve deemed monsters. What would it mean if we could collectively grieve for murdered children in Afghanistan the same way we would grieve for our own children?

And let us not be limited to distant places or people we’ve never met; there are so many Others closer to home who deserve our sensitivity and grief. I want to cry physical tears for gay teens and military veterans who are killing themselves in record numbers everyday. I need to see the spark of the divine living in brothers and sisters who engage in vicious battles over “liberal” and “conservative,” and I need my imagination to be engaged in such a way that I can see the deep brokenness that ravages the tyrants and war-makers themselves. I can’t help but believe that unpacking my misconceptions and refusing to accept the images put before me liberates me from notions that my life is somehow more sacred because of language, privilege, or faith and liberates me from the grip of powers that create fear and feed Death itself.

So what now will we do? Friends, let us nurture our impulse for mercy. Let us cultivate vibrant imaginations that can unfurl webs of infinite tendrils across oceans, beliefs, and cultures to connect all humankind. Let us stretch the borders of our tribe and re-humanize anyone mistaken for an enemy; let strangers and Others become brothers and sisters in our human family, all welcomed as Christ. When our practice of kinship grows to include all these very human beings and our will to embrace extends to surround and grieve for even the most unknown or unlovable, maybe then we will be able to embody transformative peacemaking and finally see in our systems of oppression, injustice, and greed the real monsters we should have been fighting all along.

Let it be so.

Below are some of the stories and other resources that have sparked my imagination. Blessings on the journey.

• Blog entries by Kathy Kelly
• Richard Beck’s rather excellent blog
• A family mourns the loss of a son and father to drone warfare – “creating desolation and calling it peace.“
• Read about Afghan Peace Volunteers, Ali and Abdulhai, and hold them in your mind as flesh and bone teenage boys.
• A Voices for Creative Nonviolence article on remembering the children who have fallen victim to our brokenness
• Kathy Kelly speaks to Democracy Now (video) about drone warfare, civilian casualties, and the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan
• Why the Oak Hill Sikh Temple massacre is not a national tragedy.
• These two articles make the most sense (or don’t make any sense at all?) when read together – the plight of women in Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban and the US.

(This report was assembled by Brett Flener who is currently living at the London Catholic Worker, UK.  Edited by : John Hamblett, Lauren Plummer, Kate Riley, and Kayleigh Butterfield)

Background Information:

Julian Assange is the founder of Wikileaks, a not-for-profit media organisation that brings important news and information to the public. WLs provides an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to journalists. One of WLs most important functions is publishing original source material alongside news stories, so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth. 

With its anonymous drop box, WikiLeaks provides an avenue to leak information for every government official, every bureaucrat, and every corporate worker, who becomes privy to damning information that their institution wants to hide but the public needs to know.  What conscience cannot contain, and institutional secrecy unjustly conceals, WLs can broadcast to the world. It is telling that a number of government agencies in different countries (and indeed some entire nations) have tried to ban access to WLs.  

It is important to note that Wikileaks does not solicit individuals for information.  The organization only functions as a hub for imported information from the anonymous sources and then serves as a broadcasting platform for the received information.

Banking Blockade: WikiLeaks has published the biggest leaks on war, killings, torture and detention, government, trade and corporate transparency in journalistic history. This has triggered aggressive retaliation from powerful groups. Since 7th December 2010 an arbitrary and unlawful financial blockade has been imposed by Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union. The attack has destroyed 95% of Wikileaks’ revenue.  The US government itself found that there were no lawful grounds to add WikiLeaks to a US financial blockade. But the blockade of WikiLeaks by politicized US finance companies continues regardless.  (more information here: http://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html

For more information on Wikileaks, how it works, why it is important, how it verifies new stories, the people behind Wikileaks, anonymity for sources, stories that have been brought to light by Wikileaks, and the importance of free press and principled leaking, visit their “about” page: http://wikileaks.org/About.html

-this section is paraphrased from the Wikileaks “about” section.

Julian Assange v. Swedish Prosecution Authority:

Julian Assange entered Sweden as a visitor on 13 August 2010; during his visit he had sexual intercourse with two women, AA and SW.  One week after he arrived, SW went to the police to seek advice. AA accompanied her for support. The police treated their visit as the filing of formal reports, for the rape of SW and the molestation of AA.  The reports were filed as Case No. K246314-10 [complainant SW] as ‘rape’ and Case No. K246336-10 [complainant AA] as ‘molestation’.  One day later, the Head prosecutor conducted a preliminary investigation with the two women and assessed that there was no evidence for SW’s rape charge, dismissing the arrest warrant.  On 25 August 2010, the Chief Prosecutor decided conduct alleged by one of the women [SW] disclosed no crime at all, and that SW’s file (K246314-10) would be closed.  On the same day the prosecutor decided that the preliminary investigation into the conduct alleged by AA would continue (on suspicion of the molestation offence only).

Hearing people speak about the kind of person Mary Morris was in her time at Lipscomb is a humbling experience.  In my time, I hope to cultivate only a portion of the spirit she spread among her peers and students.  James Brown, a good friend of mine, and co-worker of Mary Morris told me countless stories about the kindness she practiced so regularly.  Specifically, he mentioned his experience of a dinner party that Mary invited him to.  It was at that dinner party that James fully experienced Mary’s way of making everyone she encountered feel valued and appreciated regardless of socioeconomic level or position in society.  So, I would like to first thank Mary’s parents for raising such a wonderful woman and sharing her with the community here at Lipscomb.

I would also like to thank my parents who have taught me more about hospitality than they will ever know.  I cannot remember a time in my life when the door hasn’t been open to whomever I decided to bring home.  Be it best friends from university or a chronically ill individual whose residence was the streets of Nashville- there was always a place at our table.  I cannot thank them enough for all of the support they have given me over the past few years.

I would also like to mention past recipients of this award, Andrew and Lindsey Krinks, both of whom have been instrumental in forming and sustaining the person I am today.

1 John talks a lot about fear, death, and love.

We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know it because we love others. Those who do not love are still under the power of death. –1 John 3.14

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. –1 John 3.18

Who in this room fears death?

As biological creatures we are driven by our instincts for self-preservation. And given that pleasure and pain regulate our actions we often become selfish and hedonistic.  Further, given that self-preservation is the ethic of being mortal we can see how we can become enslaved to death. Mortality fears constantly push and pull on us, manipulating our animal instincts for survival and self-preservation.

The battle we all face is the battle between fear and love. Between self-interest and self-giving.  Obviously, selfish, envious, prideful, and violent people are going to have a hard time loving others. Such are the psychological and behavioral expressions of a life enslaved to the fear of death.

Resurrection, or living in freedom, is victory over this fear in the concrete expression of love toward others.  Living a life marked by Resurrection is the willingness to undergo a diminishment of the self and the ego to give life to others. Resurrection is perfect love casting out fear.

The Christian tradition provides no clear consensus on where boundaries should be set when it comes to sacrificing for others.  Jesus has certainly offered little consolation in this regard- by sacrificing his interests for the interests of others- to the logical conclusion of the cross.  When we look at those who have tried in his wake however, I think it is clear that the saints and the gospels prophetically encourage us to adjust our current boundaries, to say Yes more to others and No more to the self. It’s the journey of learning to love more and more that seems most critical.

Richard Beck, a behavioral psychologist and ad-hoc theologian at Abilene Christian University (who I have been ripping off for the past two paragraphs) offers us some insight on how to serve: Give up the striving after self-esteem and significance. How? Do good work. Enjoy the work for itself. Don’t turn work into a self-esteem project. Don’t serve that power. Put aside the anxiety of chasing self-esteem and significance and learn to enjoy the day. Notice the simple gifts of food and drink. Be present with your loved ones. Cherish and cultivate friendships. Don’t turn religion into a self-esteem project. Don’t be too righteous. Yet don’t be foolish either. Seek wisdom over violence and war. Avoid the propaganda of nations and fools. Spend the day doing good.

Though I’m not sure how far we should go in some ultimate or absolute sense, I am fairly certain that most of us can do more. That’s what I’m asking us all to consider.

William James, a great pragmatist of the 20th century observed: ”When we look at living creatures from an outward point of view, one of the first things that strike us is that they are bundles of habits.”

His point is simply this: Despite our feelings to the contrary, from the time we wake in the morning to the time we go back to sleep most, if not all, of our actions are deeply set in the grooves of habit. It follows, then, that much of our happiness and virtue, or misery or vice, is due to the kinds of habits we have acquired over the years. Our goal, therefore, is to learn to cultivate habits that lead to virtue and self-giving towards others.

When I met Chris Ferguson in January of 2010, he had recently been released from prison.  I was serving at one of the many warming shelters in the city that had been organized by Amos House Community church.  Chris and I shared stories until the early hours of the morning and exchanged contact information.  The relationship forged in that place still exists until today.

Chris had been a truck driver for the last 23 years of his life.  During his 2 years in prison- his trucking license expired.  This left him without an occupation or means to thrive in his new circumstances.  I introduced Chris to a group of my friends and we made it a point to spend time together on a regular basis.  Shortly after this, we began to pull money together to put down a deposit on an apartment for Chris.  If Lipscomb Security had the resources they do today, I’m sure there would have been an interrogation into suspicious activities.  During these times, it would be regular for me to send out a text in the morning and subsequently collect money for the entirety of the day in what- to the common observer- would look like an open air drug transaction than good deeds being practiced in secret.  There was a certain camaraderie between the individuals who were giving in secret throughout the hallways of Lipscomb.  It was something most of us had never experienced before.  After talking to Chris face to face and knowing him as a person, it was easy for our group of friends to tear down stereotypes of the other and practice compassion.

It was simple.  We had more than we needed.  Chris did not have what he needed.  It was common sense that we should fast from weekend activities, or for some people, from food, so that someone else could have the physical necessities and opportunity to move past their unfavorable circumstances.  It made sense that some of us should skip class to drive 8 hours roundtrip to Georgia so Chris could reinstate his license.  And when the church that offered him family and community held its services on Sunday nights, but the shelter doors closed at 5, it made sense that we offer him a bed in the dorm.  I feel confident speaking for myself and these friends who walked with Chris when I say we are forever changed in light of that experience.

I talked to Chris yesterday, he is doing well, on the road in Georgia to pick up a load.  Every-time I call, he never fails to proclaim his love and gratitude for the small sacrifices we decided to make on his behalf.  And unfailingly he asks if there is anything he can do for me.  On my better days, I return the thanks, acknowledging that he played a significant part in liberating my friends and I from our own oppression of selfish decisions and materialism and introducing us to the life that can be found in service.

Revisiting William James-the great pragmatist- we remember his observation that human beings are a bundle of habits.  Consequently, to make this world a better place, we will have to practice our beliefs about service consistently to make it a part of who we are.  If I had one piece of advice for individuals today, it would be to get out there and develop relationships with people doing significant work today.  Pursue your passion to serve and the rest will fall in place.