"My belly doesn't seem big enough to be having a baby. It just looks like I've put on weight." I looked at my thick waist, only slightly extended in the center.
"But if you press it, you can feel the baby," my friend Anne said.
I pressed and the at first subtle impression of an infants shape became increasingly, weirdly evident.
"Oh my gosh, I can see it." The shape of a baby projected out from inside my belly. It was high, where one would expect my ribs to be.
Next thing I remember I was lying in bed, the room was dim and felt gray. Though I hadn't felt anything--no contractions, no labor, no birth--a baby was lying in my arms. My impression was that she had come through my stomach.
"Now that's a home delivery! No doctors, not even a midwife." I was mystified and pleased.
The charm soon degenerated. We were in the car. Mom was driving, not Anne, and I think some of my sisters were with us. I was in the back-seat and we stopped at a convenience store to pick something up. There was something strange about my baby that I couldn't identify. I lifted I tucked her under my shirt and pressed her to my breast to feed. Her mouth could not attach, because she did not have a mouth. She did not have a face. I realized what was wrong with my baby is that there were uncomfortably extended periods of time when she was a baby-sized, shapeless, relatively firm, brown mush, not unlike partially baked bread.
I don't remember much else. There was some moment of realization that indeed my stomach had not been big enough. This baby was not fully-formed. I don't remember if the final diagnosis was that it had died, or never really been born. I only know that by the end of the dream my baby was no mine. My baby was not. And I felt hollow.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Love mercy, do justly, walk humbly...
God of the garden,
God of the park,
God of growing things
and of wild spaces,
God who whispers in the leaves,
weeps through the clouds,
shouts with the sun;
you have my heart.
I am yours.
While waiting, I watched the dragonflies. I stood close to the green heart of a yellow fringed flower, watching a fuzzy-bodied bee sip its nectar. Birds watched me and danced among the tall stalks, and with each other. I laid on my back beside an artificial stream, coins shone on the tiled bottom. Clouds sketched whitely on the buoyantly blue sky glided slowly and showed their reflection in the skyscrapers that towered, lean and gleaming. M. Ward sang, “With my eyes on the prize, and my mind on you, I put my pride on the line, and my whole life too…” And I laid there, my phone on my belly, waiting for the call from friends who would be meeting me there at Millennium Park to hear Ray LaMontagne and David Gray roughly croon our hearts away.
That morning I had went to the park. I walked, mostly, did some yoga and climbed “sledding hill.” I listened to a podcast about Mohammed and Islam. The speaker helped me grow in understanding and respect for Muslim teaching, providing a more in depth perspective from that proliferated through daily news sound-bites and general assumptions. Its flaws, usually the result of misapplication are quite similar to ours [Christianity]—violence, prejudice—as are the qualities at its heart—liberation, compassion. Hearing though that Mohammed, the exemplar of Islamic teaching, was a military leader, I felt suddenly grateful for Jesus’ rejection of that role. I remembered a recent reading of Gandhi attempting to creatively interpret around a call to arms in the Gita. I thought about the fearful question that sometimes surfaces when I read the Law of the Prophets or even the poetry of canonized Hebrew scripture; “What if God was, what if God is really a tyrant?” Amid this pondering stood Jesus, the Christ; enduringly non-coercive, non-violent, consistently compassionate and critical of injustice. He did not force or connive but offered an invitation, “come and see,” and a Way.
The merciful, radical, insightful Jesus’ reverence for the God of history, the “God of Abraham,” encourages me to look beyond the apparently cruel exterior I am often presented with and to perceive the God, creative and compassionate, that holds my heart as I work in the garden or walk in the park. If they are indeed One, I will be one with them.
God of the park,
God of growing things
and of wild spaces,
God who whispers in the leaves,
weeps through the clouds,
shouts with the sun;
you have my heart.
I am yours.
While waiting, I watched the dragonflies. I stood close to the green heart of a yellow fringed flower, watching a fuzzy-bodied bee sip its nectar. Birds watched me and danced among the tall stalks, and with each other. I laid on my back beside an artificial stream, coins shone on the tiled bottom. Clouds sketched whitely on the buoyantly blue sky glided slowly and showed their reflection in the skyscrapers that towered, lean and gleaming. M. Ward sang, “With my eyes on the prize, and my mind on you, I put my pride on the line, and my whole life too…” And I laid there, my phone on my belly, waiting for the call from friends who would be meeting me there at Millennium Park to hear Ray LaMontagne and David Gray roughly croon our hearts away.
That morning I had went to the park. I walked, mostly, did some yoga and climbed “sledding hill.” I listened to a podcast about Mohammed and Islam. The speaker helped me grow in understanding and respect for Muslim teaching, providing a more in depth perspective from that proliferated through daily news sound-bites and general assumptions. Its flaws, usually the result of misapplication are quite similar to ours [Christianity]—violence, prejudice—as are the qualities at its heart—liberation, compassion. Hearing though that Mohammed, the exemplar of Islamic teaching, was a military leader, I felt suddenly grateful for Jesus’ rejection of that role. I remembered a recent reading of Gandhi attempting to creatively interpret around a call to arms in the Gita. I thought about the fearful question that sometimes surfaces when I read the Law of the Prophets or even the poetry of canonized Hebrew scripture; “What if God was, what if God is really a tyrant?” Amid this pondering stood Jesus, the Christ; enduringly non-coercive, non-violent, consistently compassionate and critical of injustice. He did not force or connive but offered an invitation, “come and see,” and a Way.
The merciful, radical, insightful Jesus’ reverence for the God of history, the “God of Abraham,” encourages me to look beyond the apparently cruel exterior I am often presented with and to perceive the God, creative and compassionate, that holds my heart as I work in the garden or walk in the park. If they are indeed One, I will be one with them.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
West Coast Formation
A week has passed since I returned to Chicago after a three week sojourn in California. The trip impressed me deeply, causing events from earlier this summer to be all but lost in its shadow. I have to be intentional about recalling the first weeks of summer, the activities that felt so momentous at the time.
June began with the Catholics on Call conference, appropriately laying the groundwork for a formative summer with talks on discernment, vocation, prayer and community. A few days after I headed to Arizona where the boundary between the US and Mexico is lost in the Sonoran Desert. I went to participate in a humanitarian aid project, to educate myself about immigration and to be present with some of those who are in the thick of it. The two weeks I was back in Chicago are a blurred flurry of processing the previously mentioned experiences; entertaining out of town visitors; planning for a move away from my apartment and job as a nanny and into the White Rose Catholic Worker in West Rogers Park.
I hadn’t been to LA since I helped my brother Adam move there four years ago. Since then my oldest brother, Aaron, headed west as well with his wife and two children. I’ve been promising a visit for at least two years and this summer I finally made good. My original plan was to stay for ten days; that later extended to three weeks as I decided to take this opportunity to spend some time learning from and working with the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. The LACW has been living out the gospel with intensity and integrity for forty years (they celebrated their anniversary the week before I showed up). Those who comprise the community structure their days around performing works of mercy. These include feeding the poor, clothing the naked and giving shelter to the homeless.
Roughly twenty-five men and women reside at the LACW. Only eight of these are seasoned workers. The rest of the house is comprised of a handful of summer-interns--discerning whether this is a way of life that they can get behind—and “guests.” Some guests have lived in house for as long as or longer than some of the workers. All of them are men and women the workers met through the “Hippie Kitchen.” The heart of the LACW is this soup kitchen that beats out its life giving rhythm in downtown LA’s “skid row.” If you have never been to skid row it is a difficult place to imagine. I’ve lived in and visited major cities across the country—Orlando, Manhattan, Louisville, Nashville, San Francisco—never have I encountered homelessness and hunger like there is in downtown Los Angeles. Driving at night I saw blocks of sidewalks lined with tents, make-shift shanties of boxes and debris, church parking lots with bodies parked in every available space.
One of my favorite things from the five days I spent there was the picnic. Three weeks out of the summer, the LACW rents a bus, fills it with their friends who regularly eat at the Kitchen, and drives to a lovely lakeside park. The community prepares food early and is there to meet the bus load of skid row residents with chips and salsa and fruit. Grills are ignited and before long servers and those served share a meal, play Frisbee, take a stroll or simple rest in the grass beneath a shade tree. Here I had the opportunity to say more than “good morning” while quickly scooping salad onto a plate or sticking a spoon into a bowl of oatmeal. More importantly, I had the opportunity to listen, to hear the stories of my brothers and sisters who so readily welcomed me though I was a stranger.
The person who remains most present in my memory is a man who called himself “Black Jesus.” He took the name as a testament to his faith and a challenge to live an exemplary life. Black Jesus was sinewy and tall. He stood stopped and laughed soft and high like a little child. Thinking of him invariably brings to mind Jesus’ words recorded in the book of Matthew:
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. 6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. (KJV)
Before the day was over Black Jesus had a “spiritual name” to offer me and a poem to accompany it:
Unto your eyes;
Your spiritual name, is Heaven Hi.
You are a blessing unto this world,
you are a spiritual woman, within a spiritual girl.
May this poem bless you always with Jesus Holy Love,
Heaven Hi, got Jesus Blood.
Heaven Hi, is Jesus, satan is hel-lo;
Jesus is your foundation, unto your mind, body, and soul.
We are children of the living Jesus Christ,
look within, you will see Jesus mercy, grace and glory unto your life.
A-MEN
Black Jesus is one example of the many men and women who fellowship with the LACW on a regular basis and they are only a fraction of the millions of men and women throughout our country who experience homelessness and hardship and who are rejected by the mainstream. These are the least Jesus referred to when he said, “as much as you did to the least of these, you did it to me…and as much as you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Mat. 25:40). These are the face of Christ; thirsty, hungry, naked, homeless, [often] imprisoned. When we avert our eyes, or cross the street, it is Christ we turn from. When we wait for someone else to meet the need we find overwhelming or outside of our responsibility, it is Christ’s need we neglect. As a Catholic woman I am confronted with the responsibility to respond. What is required? Interacting with these men and women, I did not get the sense that their need would be satisfied by having the gospel preached to them. What was required for them, what is required from me, is that the gospel be practiced for them.
I met with many people and situations during my time in Los Angeles and Northern California that challenged my ideas of who I am and who I want to be. I think the greatest challenge though is engaging in the process of continually becoming a woman worthy of the friendships so readily offered to me, to be a woman with the humble audacity to take on the name “Jesus” with the understanding that doing so does not mean I will merely speak of him, but that I will be him; no matter where I am; no matter who I’m with.
June began with the Catholics on Call conference, appropriately laying the groundwork for a formative summer with talks on discernment, vocation, prayer and community. A few days after I headed to Arizona where the boundary between the US and Mexico is lost in the Sonoran Desert. I went to participate in a humanitarian aid project, to educate myself about immigration and to be present with some of those who are in the thick of it. The two weeks I was back in Chicago are a blurred flurry of processing the previously mentioned experiences; entertaining out of town visitors; planning for a move away from my apartment and job as a nanny and into the White Rose Catholic Worker in West Rogers Park.
I hadn’t been to LA since I helped my brother Adam move there four years ago. Since then my oldest brother, Aaron, headed west as well with his wife and two children. I’ve been promising a visit for at least two years and this summer I finally made good. My original plan was to stay for ten days; that later extended to three weeks as I decided to take this opportunity to spend some time learning from and working with the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. The LACW has been living out the gospel with intensity and integrity for forty years (they celebrated their anniversary the week before I showed up). Those who comprise the community structure their days around performing works of mercy. These include feeding the poor, clothing the naked and giving shelter to the homeless.
Roughly twenty-five men and women reside at the LACW. Only eight of these are seasoned workers. The rest of the house is comprised of a handful of summer-interns--discerning whether this is a way of life that they can get behind—and “guests.” Some guests have lived in house for as long as or longer than some of the workers. All of them are men and women the workers met through the “Hippie Kitchen.” The heart of the LACW is this soup kitchen that beats out its life giving rhythm in downtown LA’s “skid row.” If you have never been to skid row it is a difficult place to imagine. I’ve lived in and visited major cities across the country—Orlando, Manhattan, Louisville, Nashville, San Francisco—never have I encountered homelessness and hunger like there is in downtown Los Angeles. Driving at night I saw blocks of sidewalks lined with tents, make-shift shanties of boxes and debris, church parking lots with bodies parked in every available space.
One of my favorite things from the five days I spent there was the picnic. Three weeks out of the summer, the LACW rents a bus, fills it with their friends who regularly eat at the Kitchen, and drives to a lovely lakeside park. The community prepares food early and is there to meet the bus load of skid row residents with chips and salsa and fruit. Grills are ignited and before long servers and those served share a meal, play Frisbee, take a stroll or simple rest in the grass beneath a shade tree. Here I had the opportunity to say more than “good morning” while quickly scooping salad onto a plate or sticking a spoon into a bowl of oatmeal. More importantly, I had the opportunity to listen, to hear the stories of my brothers and sisters who so readily welcomed me though I was a stranger.
The person who remains most present in my memory is a man who called himself “Black Jesus.” He took the name as a testament to his faith and a challenge to live an exemplary life. Black Jesus was sinewy and tall. He stood stopped and laughed soft and high like a little child. Thinking of him invariably brings to mind Jesus’ words recorded in the book of Matthew:
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. 6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. (KJV)
Before the day was over Black Jesus had a “spiritual name” to offer me and a poem to accompany it:
Unto your eyes;
Your spiritual name, is Heaven Hi.
You are a blessing unto this world,
you are a spiritual woman, within a spiritual girl.
May this poem bless you always with Jesus Holy Love,
Heaven Hi, got Jesus Blood.
Heaven Hi, is Jesus, satan is hel-lo;
Jesus is your foundation, unto your mind, body, and soul.
We are children of the living Jesus Christ,
look within, you will see Jesus mercy, grace and glory unto your life.
A-MEN
Black Jesus is one example of the many men and women who fellowship with the LACW on a regular basis and they are only a fraction of the millions of men and women throughout our country who experience homelessness and hardship and who are rejected by the mainstream. These are the least Jesus referred to when he said, “as much as you did to the least of these, you did it to me…and as much as you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Mat. 25:40). These are the face of Christ; thirsty, hungry, naked, homeless, [often] imprisoned. When we avert our eyes, or cross the street, it is Christ we turn from. When we wait for someone else to meet the need we find overwhelming or outside of our responsibility, it is Christ’s need we neglect. As a Catholic woman I am confronted with the responsibility to respond. What is required? Interacting with these men and women, I did not get the sense that their need would be satisfied by having the gospel preached to them. What was required for them, what is required from me, is that the gospel be practiced for them.
I met with many people and situations during my time in Los Angeles and Northern California that challenged my ideas of who I am and who I want to be. I think the greatest challenge though is engaging in the process of continually becoming a woman worthy of the friendships so readily offered to me, to be a woman with the humble audacity to take on the name “Jesus” with the understanding that doing so does not mean I will merely speak of him, but that I will be him; no matter where I am; no matter who I’m with.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Eyes to See
The other day I was sitting at the computer, inanely shuffling from one e-mail address to another, to an article absently read. In the midst of this I was gladly distracted by the presence of Isaac, the one-year-old I take care of, beside my chair. He was absorbed; picking up his toys, one at a time, from a basket in the corner next to me and carrying them across the room where he placed them in a new nest beneath a chair. Intrigued by his attentiveness to this task, I decided he was more worth watching than whatever was hovering behind the electronic screen I’d been dazed by.
I started thinking about watching and being watched. I had the sense that Isaac was aware of this new dynamic and found some satisfaction in it. This is something I have thought about before. This feeling that an act attains wholeness through observation. It is validated by being viewed. I began to recall times that I’ve felt this craving to be noted acutely.
When I was in college it felt like my mind was incessantly whirring with ideas. I was forever forming little theories, enacting conversations, examining feelings and ideas, histories and futures and sometimes simply wondering and being suffused almost to suffocation with the ineffability of being. I remember a particular moment of a particular day, sitting in the hall of a classroom building, waiting between classes, wondering with an anxiety that gnawed into me, if the unrecorded thoughts roaming my mind mattered at all. If these wonderings were never written, were they of any significance at all? Was this all a waste? I often felt wasted in those days.
When I lived in Kentucky, I wandered often and alone. There were many wild hills with looming trees that tangled their long arms together or reached right into the sky and large rocks that rose up from beds of fallen leaves that had been layering for years and years. In the early days even a trip over the small paved hill that separated our volunteer house from the mailbox at the entrance of the valley had an aspect of grandiosity to it. I remember one day moving my bare feet contentedly from the warm pavement to the cool grass, admiring the loveliness that enveloped me, I began to wonder if I was lovely and wished for a witness. At the time my heart was hungry for love and inclined toward Spirit, so I prayed; “do you see me? do you love me? do you think I’m beautiful?” What I saw in nature, what I felt in my body, what I heard in the whispering breeze, was a yes and a yes and a yes. That was enough for me then.
Why does being seen matter? A couple of months ago Chris Hedges spoke at the Catholic Worker Resistance Retreat. He referred to our culture of celebrity saying, “We try to see ourselves as a camera would see us…” This is in part because we have so internalized the message from film, and television and advertising that those most worthy of our attention and admiration are those whose beautiful image has been captured. We continue more and more to experience by viewing rather than by being and feel like what we do doesn’t matter if it is not being watched or recorded. Hedges follow this line to illustrate how human beings become commodities, how we move from production to consumption. This, he says, is “the ethic of unfettered capitalism.” This is the ghostly apparition of the innate need for acknowledgement.
The need (or desire? I lack the proper research to assert that it is an actual need, though I suspect that it may be an integral part of being human) to be known has existed long before twitter and YouTube and public access television let us all make celebrities of ourselves. It’s entwined in child development, spirituality and interpersonal relationships of any age. I wonder where this comes from and what it means. Where do the boundaries between truth and falsity, healthy and unhealthy fall?
I like to think that who I am is who I am, regardless of who happens to know or notice. At the same time, I know the truth is that I want to be known and noticed, even when I’m withdrawing, even when I’m resistant. I know that, as far as I am concerned, something gains significance only when it enters my realm of observation. When I can see, touch, taste, smell or hear a thing; then it matters to me. I do not and really cannot (can I?) care about an issue unless I’ve seen it, or heard or read about, or in some way experienced it. So, can I be of significance if I am not experienced by another? Does what I do or what I think matter if it is not made manifest in a realm of observation outside my own? And beyond me, what about you? What about a child in danger of being bombed by a drone missile in Afghanistan, an unpublished author in Alabama, a migrant in the desert, a contemplative in a monastery, a tree in a forest. Oh dear, I just made myself think of one of the old, universal questions, “If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?” I finally understand the weight of that common inquiry. My goodness, there really is nothing new under the sun. Yet, somehow every living thing is ever being made new. Paradox abounds. Can you see it?
I started thinking about watching and being watched. I had the sense that Isaac was aware of this new dynamic and found some satisfaction in it. This is something I have thought about before. This feeling that an act attains wholeness through observation. It is validated by being viewed. I began to recall times that I’ve felt this craving to be noted acutely.
When I was in college it felt like my mind was incessantly whirring with ideas. I was forever forming little theories, enacting conversations, examining feelings and ideas, histories and futures and sometimes simply wondering and being suffused almost to suffocation with the ineffability of being. I remember a particular moment of a particular day, sitting in the hall of a classroom building, waiting between classes, wondering with an anxiety that gnawed into me, if the unrecorded thoughts roaming my mind mattered at all. If these wonderings were never written, were they of any significance at all? Was this all a waste? I often felt wasted in those days.
When I lived in Kentucky, I wandered often and alone. There were many wild hills with looming trees that tangled their long arms together or reached right into the sky and large rocks that rose up from beds of fallen leaves that had been layering for years and years. In the early days even a trip over the small paved hill that separated our volunteer house from the mailbox at the entrance of the valley had an aspect of grandiosity to it. I remember one day moving my bare feet contentedly from the warm pavement to the cool grass, admiring the loveliness that enveloped me, I began to wonder if I was lovely and wished for a witness. At the time my heart was hungry for love and inclined toward Spirit, so I prayed; “do you see me? do you love me? do you think I’m beautiful?” What I saw in nature, what I felt in my body, what I heard in the whispering breeze, was a yes and a yes and a yes. That was enough for me then.
Why does being seen matter? A couple of months ago Chris Hedges spoke at the Catholic Worker Resistance Retreat. He referred to our culture of celebrity saying, “We try to see ourselves as a camera would see us…” This is in part because we have so internalized the message from film, and television and advertising that those most worthy of our attention and admiration are those whose beautiful image has been captured. We continue more and more to experience by viewing rather than by being and feel like what we do doesn’t matter if it is not being watched or recorded. Hedges follow this line to illustrate how human beings become commodities, how we move from production to consumption. This, he says, is “the ethic of unfettered capitalism.” This is the ghostly apparition of the innate need for acknowledgement.
The need (or desire? I lack the proper research to assert that it is an actual need, though I suspect that it may be an integral part of being human) to be known has existed long before twitter and YouTube and public access television let us all make celebrities of ourselves. It’s entwined in child development, spirituality and interpersonal relationships of any age. I wonder where this comes from and what it means. Where do the boundaries between truth and falsity, healthy and unhealthy fall?
I like to think that who I am is who I am, regardless of who happens to know or notice. At the same time, I know the truth is that I want to be known and noticed, even when I’m withdrawing, even when I’m resistant. I know that, as far as I am concerned, something gains significance only when it enters my realm of observation. When I can see, touch, taste, smell or hear a thing; then it matters to me. I do not and really cannot (can I?) care about an issue unless I’ve seen it, or heard or read about, or in some way experienced it. So, can I be of significance if I am not experienced by another? Does what I do or what I think matter if it is not made manifest in a realm of observation outside my own? And beyond me, what about you? What about a child in danger of being bombed by a drone missile in Afghanistan, an unpublished author in Alabama, a migrant in the desert, a contemplative in a monastery, a tree in a forest. Oh dear, I just made myself think of one of the old, universal questions, “If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?” I finally understand the weight of that common inquiry. My goodness, there really is nothing new under the sun. Yet, somehow every living thing is ever being made new. Paradox abounds. Can you see it?
Monday, July 5, 2010
America, Be Beautiful
“Perhaps we chose to come to this country, or it was our parents or grandparents, or even further back that family came here with hopes and dreams and determination. For others among us, being here is directly related to forbearers being brought here as slaves. For many of us there are a variety of situations and circumstances that have led us to where we are today. The best way we can acknowledge the freedoms that we enjoy is to work to assure that they will not be eroded for the generations that follow us. We also must be vigilant that these freedoms do not encroach upon the freedom of others. Without justice there is no freedom. Even as we give thanks for what we have, we realize we are part of a larger world where in many places there are people longing for the same freedoms that are ours. May we pray and work for the freedoms that recognize the dignity of all our sisters and brothers.” -Father Grassi, St. Gertrude’s Church (emphasis added)
I felt so grateful for Father Grassi’s words this Sunday, the 4th of July. It has been interesting experiencing the approach of this holiday surrounded by this beloved assortment of activists and anarchists who view it with such antipathy. Interesting, and at times frustrating. Ambivalence, I can understand. How can one take an honest look at all the blood that has been shed, and all the injustices committed in the name of the Nation, for the sake of “Freedom” and not feel the need for repentance and critique as well as thanksgiving and celebration? Yet, we are a people of great privilege. That word too though is one that, amongst those of us who desire to remove from ourselves the mantel of power, can be seen only in a negative light. We are people of privileges that ought to be acknowledged and celebrated because they are privileges that we would desire for all people. If we ignore these unmerited gifts, there is the risk that we may begin to think that we’ve earned them, that we deserve them and that those who don’t have them must not have earned them, must not deserve them. There is the risk that if we ignore them, we will obliviously swallow them in excess. Neither enjoying them nor sharing them, all while others are deprived, waiting, working, struggling.
Mass ended with “America the Beautiful” as our closing hymn. I felt the influence of the afore mentioned ambivalence creeping in as it was announced. “Really?” I thought, “this is what we want to end with?” While singing, I realized I’d never learned any lyrics beyond the first verse. Here is the second, for those who might be in the same boat as I:
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
Singing the first few lines I thought about how little most of with the legal label of “citizen” can relate to the struggle indicated here. How many of us bear the blisters and burns and calluses of “pilgrim feet?” How many are familiar with the wilderness? My mind immediately recalled images of the desert, that sun-scorched scape that blurs the boundaries between the United States and Mexico. I thought about the pilgrims I met there. I thought about the “stern impassioned stress” that drove them from their homes and families; that burdened them along their treacherous trek; and that enveloped them as they were branded “illegal,” put in cages, processed through courtrooms, shipped away to unfamiliar cities full of unfamiliar people and promptly forgotten by those who can cross borders with barely the flick of a passport because of where they were born.
I feel fortunate to amongst those born here. But that fortune weighs heavy. My mom has often said, “From those to whom much has been given, much is expected.” I’ve long felt the truth of this as an individual. I feel it now also as a resident of the United States.
“America! America (incidentally, when we use this word, do we forget that we are only North America? There are South and Central nations that share our name!)! God mend thine every flaw; confirm the soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.
I felt so grateful for Father Grassi’s words this Sunday, the 4th of July. It has been interesting experiencing the approach of this holiday surrounded by this beloved assortment of activists and anarchists who view it with such antipathy. Interesting, and at times frustrating. Ambivalence, I can understand. How can one take an honest look at all the blood that has been shed, and all the injustices committed in the name of the Nation, for the sake of “Freedom” and not feel the need for repentance and critique as well as thanksgiving and celebration? Yet, we are a people of great privilege. That word too though is one that, amongst those of us who desire to remove from ourselves the mantel of power, can be seen only in a negative light. We are people of privileges that ought to be acknowledged and celebrated because they are privileges that we would desire for all people. If we ignore these unmerited gifts, there is the risk that we may begin to think that we’ve earned them, that we deserve them and that those who don’t have them must not have earned them, must not deserve them. There is the risk that if we ignore them, we will obliviously swallow them in excess. Neither enjoying them nor sharing them, all while others are deprived, waiting, working, struggling.
Mass ended with “America the Beautiful” as our closing hymn. I felt the influence of the afore mentioned ambivalence creeping in as it was announced. “Really?” I thought, “this is what we want to end with?” While singing, I realized I’d never learned any lyrics beyond the first verse. Here is the second, for those who might be in the same boat as I:
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
Singing the first few lines I thought about how little most of with the legal label of “citizen” can relate to the struggle indicated here. How many of us bear the blisters and burns and calluses of “pilgrim feet?” How many are familiar with the wilderness? My mind immediately recalled images of the desert, that sun-scorched scape that blurs the boundaries between the United States and Mexico. I thought about the pilgrims I met there. I thought about the “stern impassioned stress” that drove them from their homes and families; that burdened them along their treacherous trek; and that enveloped them as they were branded “illegal,” put in cages, processed through courtrooms, shipped away to unfamiliar cities full of unfamiliar people and promptly forgotten by those who can cross borders with barely the flick of a passport because of where they were born.
I feel fortunate to amongst those born here. But that fortune weighs heavy. My mom has often said, “From those to whom much has been given, much is expected.” I’ve long felt the truth of this as an individual. I feel it now also as a resident of the United States.
“America! America (incidentally, when we use this word, do we forget that we are only North America? There are South and Central nations that share our name!)! God mend thine every flaw; confirm the soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Dorothy: A very short reflection
On facebook an option came up on the sidebar to "like" Dorothy Day, so I did. So silly, really, but I am glad for every reminder of her. Not because she was perfect, or because I want to be her (though, sometimes I think I do), but because I love the way that she loved. Her life reminds me of what is possible. I consider her witness and am uplifted and challenged to live beyond the enclosure of my Self, to open my arms to Christ, creation, community. Amen. Let it be so!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
First Impressions
I have been trying to make myself document an account of my time in Arizona with No More Deaths but continue to encounter the obstacle of my own resistance. I don’t know where this resistance is coming from and thus am unsure of how to overcome it. I am going to attempt circumnavigating it, following the first impressions that rise wherever they may lead.
From the vantage of the “twin peaks,” in the early evening, the Sonoran desert looks lovely; peaks and valleys clothed in soft brown fur; subtle shifting hues. I’d climbed the peaks with a small group of fellow campers—Becky, Larkin, Cat, Sarah, Christina—with the hope of catching an elevated view of the setting sun. It was with some reluctance that I made the hike having just bathed for the first time in several days. At camp we bath via the “sun shower,” a plastic bag with a hose attached that is hung from a mesquite tree. Privacy is provided by a blue tarp stretched taut, attached to two poles. The bather stands, or squats rather, on a bed of carefully placed large red rocks collected from the crumbly hillsides. To the left is a “toilet” (a plastic bucket with a toilet seat set over top) that is to be used for #2 only (you’re on your own for the rest). Straight ahead is a patch of brambles, the drop of a valley, the quick ascension of a hill that breaks into incessantly, brilliantly blue sky. Birds sing and flutter near. I am the Eve of Arizona, naked and unashamed.
I was glad to share this hilltop sunset with others content to be quiet, to be in their own moment, while still it is a moment shared. My heart felt close to the skin of my chest, beating quickly. Emotions fluttered and throbbed but I couldn't identify what they were, what they were telling me. The landscape seemed imperturbably perfect. I could walk around the small circumference of our perch and piece together a 360 degree view of the desert that I’d spent half a week driving and hiking and sleeping in. It occurred to me that somewhere between the mountain ranges that laced the horizon was the Chavez trail that I’d patrolled the day before.
Generally a patrol begins with a drive, twenty to thirty minutes on roughly carved dirt roads that connect ranches and barren land and lead us to water drops. After checking the drop and leaving more water if necessary, we continue on foot, carrying backpacks with food, medical supplies and more water. NMD volunteers have created regular areas where we leave large deposits of water, far enough from the road that it is not readily visible to ranchers and border patrol, close enough that we don’t have to walk far lugging gallon jugs of water. A water drop could have anywhere from fifteen to fifty gallons of water depending on how “active” a trail is. Active trails are those frequently traversed by migrants. Activity is gauged by how quickly our dropped water is consumed, how much evidence there is of people passing and whether or not any migrants have been encountered by volunteers as they patrolled the surrounding area. At times a drop can become dry within a matter of days. Other times not a gallon has moved. Sometimes the water jugs are slashed or crushed. This is something that I didn’t want to believe happened until I came across it myself. It’s hard to imagine what would motivate one person to destroy another person’s chance of survival, but it happens, often.
Summer days in the desert are always brutally hot, but on the Chavez trail I felt the oppression of the heat and the relentlessly present sun magnified. Here the mesquite trees grew low to the ground. The only plant life with any height were the leafless Ocotillos, spindly and prickly and providing no shade. The ground was treacherously rocky and seemed eager to role an ankle and bring a weary body to the red dust. Navigating this path I noticed an empty bottle of Electrolit. This is a Gatorade like drink. The bottles decompose quickly in the sun and are easily crushed under foot after a few hours of exposure. This bottle was fresh, resilient, evidence that not long before me, another was present. This was the closest to a migrant that I had felt all week. I did not encounter sojourners in the desert during my week but evidence of their presence was abundant. The land was littered with discarded sweatshirts, pants, underwear, hairspray, bags. I found a Spiderman backpack. A volunteer who was with me picked up a child’s shoe. The sole was worn off completely, in its place; the insole of an adult shoe had been sown. Someone else picked up a handmade book, colorful pages were blurred by the rain and the sun but there were remnants of drawings and soccer stats written on the pages. There are people out here. I knew this before but did not feel the truth of it then as I do now. There are grown men and women, little children, individuals together and alone. People on a journey with entire lives encased within their flesh, stories that intertwine with others—husbands, wives, sisters, brothers—stories that intertwine with me.
The setting sun slunk from subtlety to brilliance, bright orange embracing the elegant edges of lavender mountain ranges. During the day, I can hardly bear the desert or Arizona in general. The thought that people choose to live here bewilders me. But in the early morning and in the evening I am converted. “This is the most beautiful place,” I say to anyone who will listen. And it is, in that moment. Yet, it is composed of harsh cruel things: thorns, scorpions, rattlesnakes, dehydration, burns, inhumanity, injustice. Amongst those harsh cruel things though are delicate, enduring beauties: brightly colored flowers, breath-taking views, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, perseverance. The contradictions of the desert and the complications of immigration are like microcosms that illustrate the confounding juxtapositions of creation and destruction, helplessness and empowerment, of mercy and cruelty that comprise life on this earth. A sense of awareness settled over me. My feelings were ambivalent. I sat feeling quiet, whole, grieved, appreciative and hopeful.
From the vantage of the “twin peaks,” in the early evening, the Sonoran desert looks lovely; peaks and valleys clothed in soft brown fur; subtle shifting hues. I’d climbed the peaks with a small group of fellow campers—Becky, Larkin, Cat, Sarah, Christina—with the hope of catching an elevated view of the setting sun. It was with some reluctance that I made the hike having just bathed for the first time in several days. At camp we bath via the “sun shower,” a plastic bag with a hose attached that is hung from a mesquite tree. Privacy is provided by a blue tarp stretched taut, attached to two poles. The bather stands, or squats rather, on a bed of carefully placed large red rocks collected from the crumbly hillsides. To the left is a “toilet” (a plastic bucket with a toilet seat set over top) that is to be used for #2 only (you’re on your own for the rest). Straight ahead is a patch of brambles, the drop of a valley, the quick ascension of a hill that breaks into incessantly, brilliantly blue sky. Birds sing and flutter near. I am the Eve of Arizona, naked and unashamed.
I was glad to share this hilltop sunset with others content to be quiet, to be in their own moment, while still it is a moment shared. My heart felt close to the skin of my chest, beating quickly. Emotions fluttered and throbbed but I couldn't identify what they were, what they were telling me. The landscape seemed imperturbably perfect. I could walk around the small circumference of our perch and piece together a 360 degree view of the desert that I’d spent half a week driving and hiking and sleeping in. It occurred to me that somewhere between the mountain ranges that laced the horizon was the Chavez trail that I’d patrolled the day before.
Generally a patrol begins with a drive, twenty to thirty minutes on roughly carved dirt roads that connect ranches and barren land and lead us to water drops. After checking the drop and leaving more water if necessary, we continue on foot, carrying backpacks with food, medical supplies and more water. NMD volunteers have created regular areas where we leave large deposits of water, far enough from the road that it is not readily visible to ranchers and border patrol, close enough that we don’t have to walk far lugging gallon jugs of water. A water drop could have anywhere from fifteen to fifty gallons of water depending on how “active” a trail is. Active trails are those frequently traversed by migrants. Activity is gauged by how quickly our dropped water is consumed, how much evidence there is of people passing and whether or not any migrants have been encountered by volunteers as they patrolled the surrounding area. At times a drop can become dry within a matter of days. Other times not a gallon has moved. Sometimes the water jugs are slashed or crushed. This is something that I didn’t want to believe happened until I came across it myself. It’s hard to imagine what would motivate one person to destroy another person’s chance of survival, but it happens, often.
Summer days in the desert are always brutally hot, but on the Chavez trail I felt the oppression of the heat and the relentlessly present sun magnified. Here the mesquite trees grew low to the ground. The only plant life with any height were the leafless Ocotillos, spindly and prickly and providing no shade. The ground was treacherously rocky and seemed eager to role an ankle and bring a weary body to the red dust. Navigating this path I noticed an empty bottle of Electrolit. This is a Gatorade like drink. The bottles decompose quickly in the sun and are easily crushed under foot after a few hours of exposure. This bottle was fresh, resilient, evidence that not long before me, another was present. This was the closest to a migrant that I had felt all week. I did not encounter sojourners in the desert during my week but evidence of their presence was abundant. The land was littered with discarded sweatshirts, pants, underwear, hairspray, bags. I found a Spiderman backpack. A volunteer who was with me picked up a child’s shoe. The sole was worn off completely, in its place; the insole of an adult shoe had been sown. Someone else picked up a handmade book, colorful pages were blurred by the rain and the sun but there were remnants of drawings and soccer stats written on the pages. There are people out here. I knew this before but did not feel the truth of it then as I do now. There are grown men and women, little children, individuals together and alone. People on a journey with entire lives encased within their flesh, stories that intertwine with others—husbands, wives, sisters, brothers—stories that intertwine with me.
The setting sun slunk from subtlety to brilliance, bright orange embracing the elegant edges of lavender mountain ranges. During the day, I can hardly bear the desert or Arizona in general. The thought that people choose to live here bewilders me. But in the early morning and in the evening I am converted. “This is the most beautiful place,” I say to anyone who will listen. And it is, in that moment. Yet, it is composed of harsh cruel things: thorns, scorpions, rattlesnakes, dehydration, burns, inhumanity, injustice. Amongst those harsh cruel things though are delicate, enduring beauties: brightly colored flowers, breath-taking views, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, perseverance. The contradictions of the desert and the complications of immigration are like microcosms that illustrate the confounding juxtapositions of creation and destruction, helplessness and empowerment, of mercy and cruelty that comprise life on this earth. A sense of awareness settled over me. My feelings were ambivalent. I sat feeling quiet, whole, grieved, appreciative and hopeful.
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