Sunday, July 28, 2019

Fire By Night by Melissa Florer-Bixler: A Review

And Florer-Bixler does a beautiful telling of the story of Ruth and Naomi. She uses the familiar story as an archetype for what Peter Dula calls fugitive ecclesia. "As a church we are offered an elusive interconnectedness as an earthly body of Christ, not a constant and fixed institution... Ruth and Naomi remind us, as does Jesus, that the space where God's life occurs isn't necessarily in church programs or Sunday school classes but in companionship, a spark of God's life - unexpected, unplanned and uncalculated."True confession: I am not an especially devoted fan of the Old Testament.

In theory, I get that there is a connection between the Old and New Testaments. And that the first five books of the Old Testament comprise the Torah.

When Jesus walked the earth, he didn't trash-talk the Old Testament. In fact, he said that he came to fulfill it. It would stand to reason that anyone who wanted to get to know God, or Jesus, better, would be motivated to spend some time searching its pages.

That's where Melissa Florer-Bixler's FIRE BY NIGHT: Finding God in the Pages of the Old Testament comes in.

Florer-Bixler has a way of finding the wisdom-diamonds hidden underneath the mines of antiquity. She writes about the corporate nature of evil, how our enemies are interconnected with our allies and how the church is routinely tempted to control holiness.

We "expect that we can make God show up. Often we believed that places were marked as holy by naming them as such. We think we are owed this as God's people." Ouch!

But Florer-Bixler offers a way out of this trap of self-righteousness. "Reckoning with our past, seeing how our Scriptures have been used for both devastation and for blessing - this can help us to live differently into the future are we embody practices, policies and habits that rechannel our desire to control God."

"The Bible is consistently a story of humans making sense of God's redemptive action in the world while at the same time wrestling with our desire to control God, to make God do our bidding, to make God into our image."

So what is the purpose of the Old Testament?

"The Old Testament," writes Florer-Bixler, "calls our attention to fragile lives in our world. Throughout the stories of ancient Israel, we are invited to turn our attention to those overlooked and left at the margins of power."

Florer-Bixler re-tells the story of the healing of Naaman highlighting that it was a young slave girl who
Melissa Florer-Bixler/Herald Press
pointed him in the direction of the prophet who eventually healed him. After Naaman looked past his privileged way of life. "Naaman sees importance in political connections and wealth," she points out. "And he learns that the God of Israel is the God to whom all are precious."


Probably one reason I don't have a particular affinity for the Old Testament is that it can reinforce the view of God as an old rulemaker-in-the-sky who is just waiting for me to do something that ticks God off. But that's not the way Florer-Bixler sees it.

Within FIRE BY NIGHT there's a short, but eloquent, passage where Florer-Bixler describes living for a time in one of the L'Arche communities in Washington, D.C. Her goal was to eventually set up a similar community in North Carolina, where she is a Mennonite minister. She quotes Jean Vanier (the founder of the original L'Arche movement in France), saying that many of us "live with the burden of unconscious guilt." She goes on to write "We feel we are not who we should be. So it is a wonder, a profound surprise, to hear you are simply enough as you are."

The Old Testament, writes Florer-Bixler helps us realize this. "Church is often trust in that which I cannot control, the shared life of another without institutionally mandated promises or production. "

Monday, July 15, 2019

Dr. Francisco Villegas & The Kalamazoo ID Project



Dr. Francisco Villegas
Francisco Villegas is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Kalamazoo College.
He has earned a PhD, Sociology in Education, Ontario Institute For Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, a MA, Mexican American Studies, San Jose State University and a BA, Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine.
From 2014-2016, Dr. Villegas was a lecturer, in the Department of Sociology, at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
His areas of specialization include Immigration, Race, Membership/Citizenship, Deportability and Illegalization. 


Since May, 2017 Kalamazoo County has been issuing Local ID cards. Can you tell us the role you played in helping to set up and implement the Kalamazoo County ID project? Why did you decide to become involved in this effort?


The Kalamazoo County has now issued over 2,000 IDs. I became involved because my research is localized and particularly invested in the ways that marginalized communities work together to address systemic inequities. I attended a meeting where early discussions about the ID were part of the agenda and I asked if I could support the project in any way. I was initially asked to join the Needs and Barriers subcommittee of the County ID Task Force and was later asked to write and present the report to the County. Currently I am serving my second year as the Chair for the Kalamazoo County ID Advisory Board and working with the Board to enhance knowledge about the card as well as access to it.



What was the most difficult challenge the Project faced in getting the Kalamazoo County ID Project in place?

Given the many communities affected by lack of ID in this county, you would think that politicians would readily see the value and purpose of such a project, but this was not the case. Politicians failed to see beyond their party-affiliation and the sensationalized fears that lead to not trusting our own communities.



Why is having a local ID option important?


In the face of federal and state-level policies that make IDs unattainable for a significant portion of the population, it is important to have local governments provide an alternative. We live in a society that normalizes the availability of ID, we demand it to pick up kids from school or to get our medications, it is expected when coming in contact with law enforcement or when applying for a job. These are just a few examples but you can see how essential IDs have become.


Can you describe the current process to obtain a Kalamazoo County ID?


There are two methods. The first is available if you already have access to a form of photo ID. It requires that you bring enough documents to fulfill a 300 point threshold.  The second is a stacking procedure that demands 400 points composed of documents that verify your identity, though do not have a picture of you. Essentially, there must be enough documents from trusted institutions that provide a level of assurance that the name on the application is the person in front of the clerk. The criteria was developed alongside the Kalamazoo County Sheriff and can be found on the County Clerk’s office website.

What pieces of information are contained on the Kalamazoo County ID?

First name, middle initial, last name, address, ID #, date of birth, height, eye color, date issued, date expired, and emergency contact. It also includes two photographs and a captured signature.

 

At the time Kalamazoo County began to issue local IDs, only Detroit and Washtenaw County issued them in Michigan. Are you aware of any other municipalities that have joined this effort?

There are dozens across the country and the Midwest appears to be a site of growth. Chicago began issuing theirs at about the same time. Minneapolis recently passed a resolution to provide their own. There are also smaller localities like Johnson County in Iowa and South Bend Indiana.

In a March, 2019 meeting of the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners you gave them three recommendations. To approve an advertising strategy on billboards and mass transit, establish a mobile sign-up unit to expand outreach, and for Kalamazoo College to offer work study hours to students. Could you elaborate a bit on each of these recommendations?

The first is now completed and paid for by the Kalamazoo Community Foundation. It was considered an important method of informing the community about the availability of the ID. The other two recommendations are connected. They recognize that the County Administration Building is open during business hours and many people work during that time and cannot afford to take time off to go the office to get their ID, particularly people who do not work/live close to the building. The goal of a mobile unit is to go to the community as an effort to ensure greater accessibility. Finally, incorporating Kalamazoo College students is part of the liberal arts education project- having them be exposed to real life issues and methods of addressing them. It also provides students experience in the policy sector that will be useful in their future education and professions.

It's estimated there are 18,000 Kalamazoo County residents who did not have picture IDs. Can you tell us where this estimate came from?

The figure came out of community members converting the national average to local numbers.

How does your academic training help your understanding of immigration issues, in general?

It allows me to see both the big picture of how people come to be in the country and the difficulties in accessing permanent and stable statuses while also providing insight into their day-to-day lives. That is, it facilitates an understanding of actual immigration processes and legislation that make movement across borders difficult and for many deadly; the ways that exploitation is enhanced by the absence of secure statuses and the inability to access them; and how communities come together to support one another.

 

Is there anything else you’d like to mention? (About the Kalamazoo community, or other organizations doing social justice work in Kalamazoo?)


This project did not stem from politicians, academics, or bureaucrats. It originated from the community and utilized broad partnerships with individuals who saw the value of the ID across the county. It is available to all Kalamazoo County residents, has received significant support from local businesses, and has been invaluable to communities facing various barriers in attaining a state-ID because of their lack of domicile or status, because their documents were lost while incarcerated, because the sex assigned to them at birth does not match their gender identity, or because of the difficulty in attaining identity documents for many elders in our community. In these ways, it is a grassroots initiative catered specifically to this county.


Monday, July 8, 2019

A Conversation With Jim Forest: Social Justice Advocate, Author



Jim Forest/Photo Credit:Orthodoxy in Dialogue
JIM FOREST is the author of numerous books, including The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton’s Advice to Peacemakers,  At Play in the Lions’ Den: a memoir and biography of Daniel Berrigan, Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment, Living With Wisdom: A Biography of Thomas Merton, All Is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day, The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life, Ladder of the Beatitudes, and Praying with Icons. He is also the author of several children's books, including Saint George and the Dragon and Saint Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins He serves as International Secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. His photographs have been widely published. 


In 1968, while Jim working as Vietnam Program Coordinator of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Jim, and thirteen others, mainly Catholic clergy, broke into nine Milwaukee draft boards, removing and burning some of the files in a nearby park while holding a prayer service. Most members of the “Milwaukee Fourteen” served thirteen months in prison for their action.

In the late sixties and mid-seventies, Jim also worked with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, first as Vietnam Program coordinator and later as editor of Fellowship magazine. From 1977 through 1988, he was Secretary General of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, work which brought him to the Netherlands. He received the Peacemaker Award from Notre Dame University’s Institute for International Peace Studies and the St. Marcellus Award from the Catholic Peace Fellowship.

In 1961 you joined the Catholic Worker in New York City. Of that time, you have said, “I was excited to find a way of life shaped by the Works of Mercy.” Could you expand a bit on that?

I’d been in the Navy, in Washington, DC, working as a meteorologist. It was exciting work and I really enjoyed the people I was working with. I had read Dorothy Day’s autobiography, THE LONG LONELINESS and knew that my future as a Christian, would have to be bound to the works of mercy. I’ve never had any regrets about that.



I became a Christian when I was ten years old. Some friends invited me to church. (My mother was an atheist, but she went to church on Christmas and Easter).  I was baptized as an Episcopalian. I saw the film The Nun’s Story, with Audrey Hepburn, and was impressed by her portrayal of a life of prayer and service. I went to Mass the following morning and read and prayed my way into Catholicism.




During an interview with Fr. Thomas Rosica (of Salt & Light Media in April, 2018) he asked what had sustained you through all the decades of your peace and social justice work. You answered: “The Eucharist. I’d starve to death without it… The Eucharist is a sacrament of communion.” Could you elaborate?

The sermons and hymn singing [in church] didn’t appeal to me. It was too much like a classroom. But the Eucharist appealed to me. It was like I entered a magnetic field I’d never experienced before. Through the Eucharist, we encounter each other. The love of God and our neighbor.



During the same interview with Fr. Rosica, you said that “I’d like to live long enough to see women ordained to the priesthood.” Why would this be an important milestone in Catholic Church history?

I was more surprised than anyone at my response. I’m a conservative Christian. But women have been given the short end of the stick. Their role in pastoral care should be increased.




Jim Forest/Photo Credit:Church of Scotland
When Fr. Roscia asked you what advice you’d give to young peacemakers, you replied that a spiritual foundation is the backbone for the work, not ideology. How have you found this to be true in your own life?

Both my parents were communists. I grew up in a home where ideology was important. I attempted to read the works of Lenin and Marx but it was a dead-end street. Ideological people tend to see things one-dimensionally. They need to take other factors in mind. Thomas Merton once gave a retreat with a theme of ‘opening your eyes.’ Authenticity is a call to open our eyes and look around us. We need to open our eyes to how fear closes them.




Another Catholic sacrament you mentioned in this interview was Confession. You recounted that Dorothy Day talked about its importance and began her autobiography, THE LONG LONELINESS, by writing about it. In your own experience, why is Confession so important?

It’s a very intimate sacrament. You open yourself us to speak your struggles to someone else. Confession can help you on the road ahead. It can un-paralyze us from guilt. Through Confession you are breaking links to the chain of fear. And you’re uprooting sin. It’s freeing.




With Fr. Dan Berrigan, you co-founded the Catholic Peace Fellowship in 1964. You noted that he “lived a very conscious and deeply structured spiritual life.” How so?

During the Vietnam War, Dan, Tom Cornell and I began to meet regularly [in a room Dan had at the time]. Dan initiated these meetings with the Eucharist. Eventually, Dan was told [by his superiors] not to say Mass outside of church. But Dan got around this by taking some wine out of a cupboard, going downstairs and getting some bread, bringing it back upstairs, blessing it and saying: ‘The Lord make of this [bread and wine] what He will.’

[Jim went on to mention that Dan was always aware of the spiritual significance of whatever he was doing.]




In an interview with Cassidy Hall (May, 2018) you tell her, “I’m an undergraduate at Dorothy Day University. I don’t expect I’ll ever graduate.” Looking back at your time spent living and working at the Catholic Worker, would you share a few of the life lessons you learned there?

The importance of having a rule of prayer. When you start the day with prayer – the Our Father, or even just the Sign of the Cross – it’s going to be a different day. Never end the day without thinking of a few things you’re grateful for.



When Cassidy asked you about your book THE ROOT OF WAR IS FEAR, you told her, “Peacemaking begins with seeing. Seeing what is going on around us. What we see and what we fail to see defines who we are and how we live our lives.” How has this been found true in your own life? Why is it important to go through life with our eyes wide open?

I came into the [Catholic] Church before Vatican II. I was taught about the ‘custody of the eyes,’ and to not look at certain things [to remain chaste.] But I think this also means to try to look at certain things that aren’t right. Look at any form of suffering. To become more responsible [for doing something about it].



You described to Cassidy an incident, when you were twelve years old, when your Mom took you into New York City to the Museum of Modern Art to see a photographic exhibit titled “The Family of Man [Humanity].” Your response was very moving. Reflecting back on this experience, you said, “Seeing is communion. The quieter you look, the more you see.” Can you go a bit deeper with that thought?

It’s important to get away from the noise and static [distraction] in your mind. Jane Brox’s book SILENCE is a good book to read on this subject.



You described to Cassidy the typical life-cycle of an activist. You protest, things don’t get immediately better, so you can become emotionally down, feeling as if the act of protesting was a waste of time. Then you said, “The truth is, it does make a difference. The iceberg is so big.” This seemed to coincide with Thomas Merton’s encouragement to you. “Shape your life on the truth. Live it as courageously as you can,” but don’t count on quick solutions. Is there anything else you’d like to say to peacemakers of the present day?

I protested the Vietnam War. That involved eleven years of protesting! I think back on how many people burned out. I wrote a letter to Thomas Merton about this. I began to wonder, am I wasting my life? I was overcome with a sense of powerlessness. Only the Cross and the Resurrection can keep you going. It’s like building a cathedral. You contribute [your piece] to it, but you won’t see the finish.



In an article in Maryknoll Magazine (January, 2017) you wrote about Merton saying that the root of war is fear. You went on to say that “When fear takes over, it tends to rob us of creativity, resourcefulness and freedom… Many fears are manufactured or hugely inflated by those who find the creation of a climate of dread useful and profitable. Fear of refugees, fear of Muslims, fear of terrorists, fear of minorities, fear of the poor, fear of criminals, fear of the police, even fear of our neighbors.” Your life seems to indicate that the antidote to fear is a stronger, deeper spiritual life. Is that the case?



You shape your life around the works of mercy. You ask the question, ‘What am I doing with the rest of my life?’ and then align yourself with the works of mercy. Opportunities will then present themselves as you become aware of them. It’s a never-ending education that includes imagination, gratitude and responding.



Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

I can’t imagine doing it [works of mercy] without a spiritual life. To live life with [some sort of] positive energy force. I refer to it as God.

Saturday, July 6, 2019

Review: We Built The Wall by Eileen Truax

Eileen Truax's WE BUILT THE WALL is a timely, historical perspective on how the US has handled the issue of immigration among those fleeing Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico.

She does a good job of offering the details that show the US has been focused on keeping vulnerable citizens from these countries out of ours, long before plans to build a "big, beautiful wall," were announced.

For instance, Truax points out that:

. in 2016 there were over 500,000 asylum cases pending, with a total of 277 immigration judges to hear them in the entire US;

. the Corrections Corporation of America (now called CoreCivic) along with GEO Industries, operates most of the prisons and detention centers that are subcontracted in the US. CoreCivic gets about $1.7 billion annually for its services;

. The US government spends over $2 billion each year detaining undocumented immigrants;

. for each day a person is held in detention the company operating the prison receives $164, and up to $298 a day for families held in family detention centers;

. In 2010, well before the current situation at the border we share with Mexico, the Department of Homeland Security held 363,000 immigrants in detention centers. Sixty percent of these individuals were held in detention centers operated by CoreCivic and GEO Group.

. CoreCivic has 15,000 employees. In 2013, the company reported a profit of more than $700 million. $300 million coming from government contracts;

Eileen Truax/InquireFirst
. The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2017 requires ICE to hold a minimum number of detainees each year at each detention center to guarantee CoreCivic and GEO Industries sufficient profit;

. The National Immigrant Justice Center has recommended that ICE use monitoring bracelets ($17 a day) versus detention ($164 a day), but thus far, ICE has ignored this recommendation.
. since 2017 an additional 15,000 ICE agents have been hired, but only 50 additional immigration judges.

After offering several stories of individuals and families who tried to come into the US as undocumented immigrants, seeking asylum, Truax states: "Citizens of countries including El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico cannot enter the visa lottery. If they are not sponsored by an employer, or a family member does not petition for them, these people have no other way to come to the United States legally."

It's a complex story that makes a sad statement. Truax's book makes the point that the US government doesn't seem to care about individuals seeking asylum, and is making it increasingly difficult for them to do so. Meanwhile, US taxpayers are funding an unkind, and in some cases, a lethal system that continues to detain human beings who are seeking asylum.

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Hitchhiking to California: A Mini-Memoir

It was the summer of 1974.

I had just graduated from college and my brother Dominic had graduated from high school.

We were in the back yard of my parents' house in Michigan, weeding the garden on a sunny early July morning.

In the middle of idly shooting the breeze with each other, Dominic casually turned to me and said, "This would be a great day to hitchhike to California."

[I had gotten the travel bug a month or so earlier and, through Mother Earth News, had contacted a farmer in that state. In those days Mother Earth News was the epicenter of the "back to the land" movement and its pages were full of ads run by farmers who offered free room and board for work. I had a destination, but not yet the incentive to go. Dominic proved to be the catalyst.]

So we gathered up a small tarp, a couple changes of clothes told our Mom what we were doing and took off with about $60 between us.

Thank God our Mom didn't try to talk us out of it!

Now, I'm by no means suggesting that hitchhiking, nowadays, would be a fun or safe way to travel. All things considered, it's not. But back then, it was a different story.

Dominic and I walked up the street and headed about a mile or so in the general direction of I-94. We got our first ride from a married guy who was maybe eight years older than us. We told him we were hitchhiking to California. He smiled and said, "Boys, this is the time in your life to do it! When you're young and free of obligations."

He was right. Neither one of us had a full-time job. We were living at home. It was the summer of a prelude to adulthood.

I had recently been given a State Farm Road Atlas, a reward for meeting with a couple of insurance salesmen while attending Olivet College. As the salesguys made their pitch in the Student Union, I kept smiling and nodding my head, answering their questions. But at the end, I told them, "I have to be honest with you. I'm only sitting here because you told me I'd get a free atlas." They weren't happy about it, but I suppose they knew, coming into the sales chat, that kids a few weeks away from graduating college weren't likely thinking about life insurance.

At any rate that road atlas was what we used to make our travel plans. We were traveling half-way across the country, roughly 2,400 miles one way. It proved to be the only guidance we needed.

Along the way, we stayed at camping grounds, the lobby of a dorm at Univesity of Columbia in Missouri (after being asked to leave by a Christian college), along the exit ramp of a freeway, and crashed on the sidewalk of a rectory. [That final resting place came after being up most of the night trying to get rides. It was my first experience of being so tired I almost fell asleep walking and  quickly succumbed to slumbering on concrete.]

For the most part, the people who gave us rides were very decent and helpful. [Except for some kids who dropped us off an exit ramp in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of  a pitch-dark night.]

In Colorado, just outside of Colorado Springs, a guy who drove a refrigerated truck offered to put our packs in the cooler unit so the water we were carrying would be cold. Another person, outside Denver, who managed an apartment complex, let us stay in an empty apartment for the night. In that same apartment complex, a wonderful Latina woman cooked us a steak dinner!

As we ate supper we watched a thunderstorm roll across the Rocky Mountains.

Right before entering California, we went over Donner's Pass and our driver, a New Zealander, told us the fate of a party traveling in 1846, forced to spend the winter in the mountains, half of them dying before the spring thaw came.

Our fate was much kinder, driving along I-80.

California Coast/Credit: KPBS
Going through San Francisco and Haight-Ashbury was a highlight. Our New Zealander friend dropped us off within walking distance of the Pacific Ocean. Another highlight.

Felton, the small town leading to the farm was filled with hippies. The farm where we stayed and worked had big bay trees which sent out an amazing fragrance. Meals in the dining room were shared with a very eclectic bunch of folk - all of whom slept in the house. But Dominic and I slept on cots in the garage. Which probably had something to do with the decision to leave.

Just as spontaneously as our trip began, about a week into it, the stay at the farm ended. One morning I was set for another workday. But Dominic wasn't. "We're basically doing this guy's work for free," he said. "And the only thing I've learned is how to use a wheelbarrow." I couldn't argue with him.

We had gotten to California in six days. Which, according to hitchhikers we met coming home, was some sort of record.

The trip back also took six days. The one ride I remember on this leg of the trip took place as we were going through the Midwest, in the back of a van, with several other hitchhikers. All of us talked about where we had been and where we were headed. In our case, back home. One of the guys in the group remarked, sarcastically, "Well, that was a waste of time, wasn't it?" Another, much kinder, woman, looked at me and smiled, "Don't pay any attention to him. Your experience is your experience. And you're going to look back and remember this trip as a happy one."

She was absolutely right!

I learned a few life lessons from that trip.

Like, people are basically decent and kind.

America is a huge place!

And it's beautiful!

And 45 years later, I still have that road atlas!

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

Pinocchio: Art Credit, Disney If ever there were a time for a national "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire" award, it's now. And certai...