Monsters and Scapegoats: A Reflection on Otherness, Grief, and the Failure of Imagination

posted by Lauren Plummer

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.

Fear, Death, and Love

(remarks from recipient of the Mary Morris Award, Lipscomb University: Brett Flener)

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.

How the Light Gets In

by Lindsey Krinks (published in the May 2010 issue of The Contributor)

It is easy to find stories of loss, despair, and devastation on the streets. Such stories are as endless as the countless faces of the men, women, and children who stand daily in breadlines across the world. And such stories are important, for they bear witness to the atrocities that happen in the margins—atrocities which often go unnoticed. Yes, on the streets, funerals abound and loneliness descends like a plague. We are broken people living in a broken society. But in the midst of such brokenness, there are glimpses of hope, hospitality, and community. “There is a crack in everything,” croons poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen. “That’s how the light gets in.” Let this be a tribute to the light that seeps through the cracks, to the brief moments of beauty, clarity, and renewal that overcome the dark, grueling chaos of the streets.

Hope against all odds

Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter in the Christian tradition, was, for first century disciples, a day of mourning, uncertainty, and “standing in the void” between death and life. This year on Holy Saturday, a group of us spent the day on the streets with our brothers and sisters in a period of contemplation and reverence. While we were waiting in line for food at the Jefferson Street Bridge, we mingled with our friends and listened to their stories. In the middle of a conversation, I felt a light tap on my shoulder and heard a voice ask, “Lindsey, is that you?” I turned around to see a tall, handsome man in his fifties and it took only a second for me to realize who he was. “Indiana!” I shouted, as I hugged him. My eyes filled with tears—I was utterly stunned to see him.

Indiana was one of the first people that I truly connected with on the streets, and for nearly a year, I have wondered about him. I’ve wondered if he was dead, locked away in jail, or roaming the streets of some distant city. I met him on a cool, rainy day last March, and we connected instantly. He was filthy, soiled, and toothless, but he had a twinkle in his brown eyes that I will never forget. Every few days, he stumbled to our office reeking of mouthwash, his pants saturated in his own urine, barely able to stand. Because of his poor health, he had to lean on a crutch or a shopping cart to get around. My coworkers and I worked with him for months and months and nothing changed. He was an old hippie—an ex-member of “The Rainbow Family”—and thus highly skeptical of institutions. He wasn’t ready to get the help he needed, but we continued to build a relationship with him, give him clean, dry pants, and help him down to the shower. We watched him cycle in and out of jail and the hospital, and finally, finally, he agreed to try treatment. “You got a life,” he said to me one day, “and just like you got one, I want one, too. I want mine back.”

I still remember the day I drove him out to the VA in Murfreesboro for detox and treatment—we listened to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon to calm his nerves. After treatment, he got into a local transitional housing facility and shortly thereafter he left and we lost track of him. I figured he had relapsed and hitchhiked back to Indiana, but there he stood before me: alive, articulate, sober, healthy, and smiling with a new set of teeth. He stood before me resurrected, and I was as astounded as doubting Thomas. He told me that he thinks of us often and is thankful for us. “Do you remember what you ladies told me before I left?” he asked. “You said when I was sober and in housing, you would take me out to eat. Well, I want to take you guys out to eat!” he beamed. Yes, on Holy Saturday, life seemed devastating, bleak, and confusing. But even today, in the midst of darkness and uncertainty, resurrection is happening all around us, if we only have eyes to see.

Hospitality in the margins

“Until we find each other, we are alone,” writes poet Adrienne Rich, and who knows this better than the marginalized, forgotten, and overlooked members of our community? Through my work with Nashville’s homeless community, I’ve often seen more faith and hospitality on the streets than I’ve seen in many of our churches. Over the last two years, there have been a handful of vulnerable homeless individuals we’ve worked with that no service providers would take because these individuals “didn’t fit criteria”: the elderly, uninsured man with Alzheimer’s; the gnomish, schizophrenic 54-year-old with the mental capacity of an eight-year-old who wasn’t “sick” or “violent” enough for a state hospital but not “well” enough for other service providers; the nearly blind, chronically ill, mentally disabled man who was told he was a “fire hazard” by the only transitional shelter in town that almost accepted him. My coworkers and I spent countless hours with each of these individuals trying to locate the services they desperately needed, and were turned down by almost 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 for our vulnerable friends, the only place we found hospitality was in the margins—specifically in Tent City. You see, when we visit with our friends at Tent City, they often ask us how things are going. Sometimes, we recount frustrating circumstances with them (while observing HIPPA, of course). With each of the three circumstances above, residents of Tent City offered to make space in their camp for our vulnerable friends. Two such 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 back and two broken arms. Other residents of Tent City cared for the man with Alzheimer’s when no one else in our city would. Maybe those of us who feel compelled to bring Jesus to the “least of these” should consider that, perhaps, he is already there in the margins with them.

Community and commitment

For every person and congregation in Nashville who is disconnected from the lives and stories of the poor, there are also people and congregations who are engaged. The engaged and committed groups are those who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty and realize that people are not problems to be fixed; they are brothers and sisters to be loved and journeyed with.

Ethos Church is a fairly new church in Nashville whose mission is simply to love God and love people. They have about 600 members and hold services at the Cannery Ballroom on 8^th Avenue every Sunday night. They don’t meet at the Cannery because it’s a trendy music venue; they meet there because it’s close to the heart of the city and accessible to their members who are homeless. Ethos has embraced the countless members of Nashville’s homeless community and invited them into their lives and homes. A little over a year ago, Popcorn joined their church. Popcorn was homeless, African-American, endearingly flamboyant, and HIV positive. Last fall, the doctors told Popcorn his “T cell” count was dangerously low and that he only had a couple of months to live. Immediately, Ethos raised the money to keep Popcorn in housing and helped to make provisions for hospice care.

As Thanksgiving and Christmas approached, Popcorn’s body grew weaker, but his spirits remained high. His friends from Ethos visited him, brought him food, and prayed and laughed with him. The week of his death, Popcorn was surrounded by his closest friends and family members around the clock. Despite his young, tragic death, Popcorn lived and loved with everything he had, and there was no doubt that he was loved by many. When the time came for funeral preparations, Ethos stepped up again. Their members generously funded the funeral and invited Popcorn’s family to a potluck dinner afterward.

The memorial service was held on a chilly night in January and the room was packed with a mosaic of African-American members of Popcorn’s family and members of Ethos who are primarily white and in their 20s. Tears, laughter, hugs, and memories were shared and it was clear that this was a glimpse of the “beloved community” that Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke about so eloquently. Afterward, everyone gathered together for a huge meal where there was singing, storytelling, and more laughter and tears. Members from Popcorn’s family were deeply moved and told Ethos, “We’ll see you at your church on Sunday!”

Earlier this week, I received a call from a librarian, “Francis,” in Sumner County. She told me that she had recently taken in a homeless couple. “The guy is 23 and the girl is 20 and nine months pregnant,” she said. “Both are mentally handicapped.” Francis is a single mother with three children, two of whom are living at home. Her family has embraced the couple and converted their living room into a nursery. I asked Francis what we could do to help. “Well, we have all of the baby things they need, I signed them up for Food Stamps, WIC, and TennCare, and we’ve been watching videos about birthing, nursing, and parenting. The 23-year-old has been looking for work and has applied at Goodwill, but we are taking care of them and they are welcome to stay at the house right now. I want to eventually help them get back on their feet, but the baby is due any day, so we’re taking it one step at a time.” I was stunned. A librarian who is also a single mother and probably struggles financially herself, had taken in a pregnant handicapped couple in need. We talked for some time, going over resources, housing possibilities, and their situation. Francis said she wants the couple to have support and thinks this might be the first time they’ve been in a trusting, healthy relationship with someone else. She explained that she was just doing what needed to be done. I told her that we would support them any way we could and we talked about how one of the “common denominators” of homelessness is, to use a Wendell Berry term, “community disintegration.” If a falling away of community contributes to someone becoming homeless, then part of the solution must be building community back around the person.

Ethos didn’t see Popcorn as a “problem to be fixed,” and Francis didn’t see the homeless couple as a charity project. Both Ethos and Francis fully embraced these individuals and committed to journeying with them through thick and thin. Popcorn passed away and there is no telling what is in store for the soon-to-be-parents, but true mercy and love are never contingent on outcomes and results. In other words, if we glue together all the cracks of the world, how will the light get in?

Oscar Romero, former Archbishop of the capitol of El Salvador, was fiercely committed to standing beside the impoverished and oppressed and even publically condemned his country’s corrupt government and military from the pulpit. He was finally assassinated by government allies in 1980 while celebrating Mass. The “Romero Prayer” was later composed in his memory and reads, “We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing this. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”

May we all have the courage to take a step in the direction of embracing others, living among the cracks, and rejoicing in the glimpses of hope, hospitality, and community discovered therein.

Parables for Lent

Over the last month or so, I’ve had the great joy of reading through the parables collected in Peter Rollins’ book The Orthodox Heretic. The more I read and am shaped by the indispensable language of poetry, story, and parable, the more I am convinced that we cannot do without what is “said” within them. It is why, for example, in moments of intense gratitude and awareness in the wake of Christ (Mary contemplating the immense possibility of the child in her womb, Paul proclaiming the unspeakable glory of Christ), cold prose will not suffice. In such moments, and forever after them, the language that strikes nearest the full depth the divine will be poetic, metaphorical, and symbolic in nature.

And thus, Pete Rollins’ parables: speaking beautifully to the radical nature of Christ, the kingdom, faith, and doubt in ways that both enlighten and mystify, they are a testament to the power of poetic/parabolic uttering.

And so, over the next few days I will be posting a handful of parables from Pete’s book that are especially relevant not only to the journey that those of us from Amos House find ourselves on, but for the now-underway season of Lent as well.

“Salvation for a Demon”

In the center of a once-great city there stood a magnificent cathedral that was cared for by a kindly old priest who spent his days praying in the vestry and caring for the poor. As a result of the priest’s tireless work, the cathedral was known throughout the land as a true sanctuary. The priest welcomed all who came to his door and gave completely without prejudice or restraint. Each stranger was, to the priest, a neighbor in need and thus the incoming of Christ. His hospitality was famous and his heart was known to be pure. No one could steal from this old man, for he considered no possession his own, and while thieves sometimes left that place with items pillaged from the sanctuary, the priest never grew concerned: he had given everything to God and knew that these people needed such items more than the church did.

Early one evening in the middle of winter, while the priest was praying before the cross, there was a loud and ominous knock on the cathedral door. The priest quickly got to his feet and went to the entrance, as he knew it was a terrible night and reasoned that his visitor might be in need of shelter.

Upon opening the door he was surprised to find a terrifying demon towering over him with large dead eyes and rotting flesh.

“Old man,” the demon hissed, “I have traveled many miles to seek your shelter. Will you welcome me in?”

Without hesitation, the priest bid this hideous demon welcome and beckoned him into the church. The evil demon stooped down and stepped across the threshold, spitting venom onto the tiled floor as he went. In full view of the priest, the demon proceeded to tear down the various icons that adorned the walls and rip the fine linens that hung around the sanctuary, while screaming blasphemy and curses.

During this time the priest knelt silently on the floor and continued in his devotions until it was time for him to retire for the night.

“Old man,” cried the demon, “where are you going now?”

“I am returning home to rest, for it has been a long day,” replied the kindly priest.

“May I come with you?” spat the demon. “I too am tired and in need of a place to lay my head.”

“Why, of course,” replied the priest. “Come, and I will prepare a meal.”

On returning to his house, the priest prepared some food while the evil demon mocked the priest and broke the various religious artifacts that adorned his humble dwelling. The demon then ate the meal that was provided and afterward turned his attention to the priest,

“Old man, you welcomed me first into your church and then into your house. I have one more request for you: will you now welcome me into your heart?”

“Why, of course,” said the priest, “what I have is yours and what I am is yours.”

This heartfelt response brought the demon to a standstill, for by giving everything the priest had retained the very thing that the demon sought to take. For the demon was unable to rob him of his kindness and his hospitality, his love and his compassion. And so the great demon left in defeat, never to return.

What happened to that demon after this meeting with the elderly priest is anyone’s guess. Some say that although he left that place empty-handed he received more than he could ever have imagined.

And the priest? He simply ascended his stairs, got into bed and drifted off to sleep, all the time wondering what guise his Christ would take next.