An Advent Meditation: Mary, Hannah & Cesar Chavez - Empire Falling...

Sunday marked the beginning of the season of Advent which is also the beginning of the liturgical calendar for Christians.

As happenstance would have it, I'm reading ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN by Eric Atchenson.

On page 41 of this thought-provoking book, Atchenson pairs together Mary's (the mother of Jesus) Magnificat with a similar song of praise given by Hannah (the mother of the prophet Samuel). 

Here's what Mary, a teenager, sang, in response to her older cousin Elizabeth's greeting.

Mary sang:

"My soul magnifies the Lord

And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior

For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;

For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.

For He who is mighty has done great things for me,

And holy is His name.

And His mercy is on those who fear Him

From generation to generation.

He has shown strength with His arm;

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He has put down the mighty from their thrones,

And exalted the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

And the rich He has sent away empty..."

As a young person, growing up attending a Catholic school, I remember being taught that Mary was Jesus' mother. She was patient and kind and loving. 

All these things were probably true.

But Mary's own song paints a picture of a very bold pregnant teenager singing out to the heavens.

The Mary who is singing this song is unabashedly rejoicing in God who is not only her savior, but her liberator. 

She sings about a God who is merciful, but also strong. Scattering the proud, pulling down the mighty from their thrones, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with food while sending away the rich.

Atchenson pairs Mary's song with Hannah's song when she brought her son, Samuel to the temple to begin his life of service.

Hannah prayed:

"My heart rejoices in the Lord!

The Lord has made me strong.

Now I have an answer for my enemies;

I rejoice because you rescued me...

Stop acting so proud and haughty!

Don't speak with such arrogance!

For the Lord is a God who knows what you have done;

he will judge your actions.

The bow of the mighty is now broken,

and those who stumbled are now strong.

Those who were well fed are now starving,

and those who were starving are now full...

He [the Lord] lifts the poor from the dust

and the needy from the garbage dump.

He sets them among princes,

placing them in seats of honor.."

Again, the themes of praise and liberation hold true.

Hannah prays out, rejoicing in God's lifting up the lowly, the poor, the hungry, the downtrodden. She also sends a direct warning to the proud, the haughty, the arrogant to watch out. The day is coming when the powerful (according to society's standards) will no longer rule.

Both Hannah and Mary then, urge us to focus on the God who sees the oppressed and raises them up.

Atchenson writes: "Both women lived in lowly social stations as either a married-yet-childless wife (Hannah) or as a divinely pregnant unwed fiancee (Mary). Both women sang of a God whose justice involved the reversal of circumstances, but Mary specifically applied that reversal to economic fortunes; the hungry were filled and the rich made empty-handed."

Then Atchenson asks the $10,000 question: "What if that were the church's Christmas message?" 

Wow! 

In twelve years of religion classes taught by the good sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I don't remember them mentioning this message.

Advent was a time of inward preparation. Silence. Anticipation. Longing. For baby Jesus.

But Mary was shout-out-loud rejoicing in the falling down of Empire.

She may have been a teenager, but she had some divinely inspired wisdom deep inside, motivating her joy at seeing the world turned upside down by her son.

Not just spiritually, but practically.

People were going to be fed. The forgotten, those living on the margins were going to be lifted up. And the rich, the powerful, were going to be sent away, empty-handed.

This is nothing more than heaven coming to earth. Now. Not in the bye and bye.

And, finally, here's an example of such revelation of kingdom coming, from Cesar Chavez, a deeply spiritual Roman Catholic, who led the United Farm Workers in difficult strikes during the 1960s. This is his Prayer of the Farm Workers Struggle:

"Show me the suffering of the most miserable;
So I will know my people’s plight.

Free me to pray for others;
For you are present in every person.

Help me take responsibility for my own life;
So that I can be free at last.

Grant me courage to serve others;
For in service there is true life.

Give me honesty and patience;
So that I can work with other workers.

Bring forth song and celebration;
So that the Spirit will be alive among us.

Let the Spirit flourish and grow;
So that we will never tire of the struggle.

Let us remember those who have died for justice;
For they have given us life.

Help us love even those who hate us;
So we can change the world. Amen."

In the middle of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are already used to life being interrupted. We are already used to the kingdom of normality falling.

This Advent season Hannah and Mary and Cesar are inviting us to listen to the sound of social justice coming.

Meet Anna Rodell, Editorial Director, The Immigration Coalition

Anna Rodell

Anna Rodell considers herself a career academic who is currently working towards her Ph.D. in education. She has earned a M.A. in Latin American Studies. As an undergraduate student, Anna worked for three years in immigration legal aid in Memphis, Tennessee. That was her first real exposure to justice work, and it continues to guide her academic, professional, and spiritual practice. Serving as Editorial Director for The ImmigrationCoalition has given Anna a space to help other followers of Jesus engage with important cultural, political, and faith-related questions while meeting the immediate needs of immigrants at the border.

What do you see as the mission and the vision of The Immigration Coalition?

The immigration Coalition provides biblically-balanced resources on immigration that show compassion to immigrants and respect for the rule of law. Showing compassion to immigrants doesn’t require us to eliminate all immigration policy or throw safety out the window (especially because crime rates are lower among immigrants than native-born Americans[1]). Compassion does require us to reframe the way we think about immigration issues. As TiC often shares, immigrants are people to love, not problems to solve. This means that our first line of thought regarding immigration issues should be “How does God call me to act towards immigrants?” – and our political response should emerge from the answers to that question. Here’s the beauty of living in a democracy: if our government’s response to immigrants doesn’t align with God’s ethic of love, welcome, shelter, and provision for foreigners and travelers, then we have the political power, and I would argue the obligation, to use our voices and votes to change that.

 

Could you talk a bit about the importance of TIC’s Water for Immigrants project? (Water for Immigrants serves 500 migrant families living in a tent-city near the border in Matamoros, Mexico, as well as another 3,000 individuals living in slums around the same city).

When Jesus ministered to people, He started by meeting their immediate needs. He fed the hungry (Matthew 14-Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6-Mark 6:31-44; Luke 9-Luke 9:12-17; John 6-John 6:1-14), healed the sick (Matthew 9:20-22, Matthew 9:35, Mark 2:9-12, Luke 17:12-16, John 9:6-7, ), befriended the outcast (Luke 5: 12-16, Luke 5:27-32, Luke 7:36-50, Luke 19:1-10, John 4:4-42), and protected those in danger (John 8:1-11). He cared for their bodies as well as their souls.

The families in the tent city and the Matamoros slums have been disregarded by governments on both sides of the border and left vulnerable and thirsty. Without clean water, people suffer from dehydration and disease, and this is particularly dangerous in a pandemic. If we’re going to minister to people as Jesus did, we have to care about their physical safety and wellbeing.

 

In late October The Immigration Coalition held its first national conference. Can you tell us why TIC decided to hold a conference at this time? What did you hope to accomplish?

Particularly in a time of such extreme political and social polarization, followers of Jesus should be leading efforts at justice, compassion, and understanding. There’s an amazing range of Jesus-followers doing this work across the United States and around the world, and the conference allowed us to bring a handful of these leaders together to share their experiences and their perspectives on immigration with hundreds of people seeking to develop a Biblically-balanced, Jesus-centered outlook. It’s entirely possible to respect law and democracy while doing justice and showing compassion to immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, and that’s what we wanted to share.

 

How about the Conference speakers involved? How did you choose them?

TiC has actually worked with many of our speakers before and connected with others through their social media platforms and organizations. Our conference topics ranged from ministry to political engagement to immigrant experiences to Biblical ethics, and the strongest through-line of all our speakers was their commitment to a Jesus-centered, Biblically-based approach to issues of faith, culture, and politics related to immigration.

 

In your estimation, did the TIC’s conference fulfill its goals? Looking back on it, what lessons did you learn? What would you change or improve upon for next year?

We’re humbled that nearly 1,000 people tuned in to watch the conference! We saw beautiful and fruitful conversations take place in the breakout sessions and afterwards on social media, and that tells me that we met our goal to develop renewed perspectives on immigration issues. Moving forward, we’re planning to host smaller, more frequent conferences and workshops in the hopes that people with restrictive schedules can more easily attend. Smaller speaker lineups will also allow us to highlight more specific topics within immigration. We also hope to open the annual conference to in-person attendance, public health circumstances permitting!

 

Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

When I was working in immigration aid, I had the opportunity to provide legal services for women and children at a detention center who were seeking asylum from Central America. I met with more than 20 women who told me about the horrible suffering they’d escaped from and endured on their journeys to the United States, but so many of them told me that their faith in God sustained them and gave them hope. They were desperately clinging to that faith as they waited for justice from a prison they should never have been sent to in the first place. I grow more certain every day that one of the greatest failings of U.S. Christianity is its narrow vision of who holds the truth about God and who can evangelize whom. When we imprison or turn away our brothers and sisters from outside of the U.S., we are closing our eyes to the image of God that they embody and shutting out the voice of God that speaks through them.

---

[1] https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/irpb-4-updated.pdf

https://items.ssrc.org/border-battles/the-myth-of-immigrant-criminality/

https://www.cato.org/blog/illegal-immigrants-crime-assessing-evidence

https://www.policefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Appendix-D_0.pdf

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/topics/immigration-and-crime

A Review: One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder by Brian Doyle

Brian Doyle

Brian Doyle was a beautiful, whimsical, wise writer.

ONE LONG RIVER OF SONG: Notes on Wonder for the Spiritual and Nonspiritual Alike, is a batch of his essays, published posthumously. (He passed away at only 61 years of age in 2017).

Here’s something he wrote about silence: “I contemplate snippets of silence in mine existence and find them few but I find that this delights rather than dismays me, for the chaos and hubbub in my life, most of sea of sound, are my children, who are small quicksilver russet testy touchy tempestuous mammals always underfoot in the understory…”

Or how about this?: “You either walk towards love or away from it with every breath you draw. Humility is the road to love. Humility, maybe, is love.”

And he writes about his then-young daughter Lily, composing notes to the daoine sidhe, the small people, to find outside their home. “I think that mostly what people think is supernatural isn’t. I think there is much more going on than we are aware of and sensitive to and perceptive about, and the more we think we know what is possible and impossible the more we are foolish and arrogant and imprisoning ourselves in an idea.”

In another essay, he goes on to say: “I am fascinated by how language is a verb and not a noun. I am riveted by how language is a process and not a preserve. I am also absorbed by the way that we all speak one language but use different tones and shades and volumes and timbres and pronunciations and emphases in order to bend the language in as many ways as there are speakers of the language.”

About a boy and his young father going to see a gigantic sturgeon named Herman, Doyle writes: “…Herman slowly filled the window like a zeppelin. The boy leaped away from the window and his hat fell off. No one said a word. Herman kept sliding past for a long time. Finally, his tail exited stage left and the boy said, awed, clear as a bell, Holy Shit, Dad. The father didn’t say anything and they stood there another couple of minutes, both of them speechless, staring at where Herman used to be, and then they walked up the stairs holding hands.”

Quite often, Doyle slips in a slice of wisdom so delicious you have to stop and savor it. Like when he’s writing about some of the reasons people give for divorcing: “The instant there is no chance of death is the moment of death.”

ONE LONG RIVER OF SONG has essays on the U.S. munitions industry, and meeting two firefighters in a New York City bar post-9/11, and meeting God at the Post Office.

Here’s another example of Doyle at his best: “…Humor has something crucially to do with humility, and that humility is very probably the one inarguable mark of maturity, and whatever it is we mean when we use the word wisdom.”

Towards the end of ONE LONG RIVER OF SONG, is Doyle’s longest essay, about the trial of the poet William Blake. It took Doyle five years to research and complete it. And in trying to answer why he took all that time, he attempts to answer why he writes in the first place. “I don’t know why I write, exactly. Catharsis, the itch to make something shapely and permanent, the attempt to stare God in the eye, the attempt to connect deeply to other men and women, because I can’t help myself, because there is something elevating in art, because I feel myself at my best when I am writing.”

And Doyle writes about missing how his father used to listen. “His listening is now largely a thing of the past; he and his ears have achieved a great and venerable age, and his hearing is a shadow of what it once was. His mind is as sharp or even more so that it ever was; his generosity and grace remain oceanic; and you could search whole galaxies, to no avail, for a gentler, wittier man. But this morning I find that I very much miss that one little thing he did so well, that was not little – the way he stared at your face as you spoke, with all his soul open and alert for your story...”

A lot of ONE BEAUTIFUL RIVER OF SONG is really an ode to Doyle’s dad, siblings, wife and children – his family. There’s a lot of tale telling. And it’s not surprising that the last two lines of the last essay are this: “Time stutters and reverses and it is always yesterday and today. Maybe the greatest miracle is memory. Think about that this morning, quietly, as you watch the world flitter and tremble and beam.”

Kalamazoo Nature Center: A Respite from Covidly Stressful Times!

I recently spent a sunny Saturday afternoon wandering the trails at the Kalamazoo Nature Center.

During these fraught-filled times, nature has been and continues to be a remarkably calming, grounding, beautiful experience!

It's in this spirit that I offer these photos of the walk.

This pond reflects the second, larger home that the DeLano Family built and lived in on their pioneer farm in Kalamazoo County, MI.

This is one of the trails that leads down to the Turtle Pond.

Another, beautiful part of the Turtle Pond trail, with the sunshine clearly showing the graceful marsh.

Here's a photo showing a recent development - the greenhouse set in front of the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) garden. Of course, during the spring-through-summertime, this land would be teeming with activity!

This is a replica of a log cabin that the DeLanos built when initially settling on their land. They lived i in such a cabin while building their much larger frame house!

And here's a moss-topped marker for one of the trails at the Kalamazoo Nature Center.

Many, many thanks to the Kalamazoo Nature Center to their dedicated staff and volunteers who have done their best to keep as much of the Nature Center open during the Pandemic as safely possible!

Here's more information on the Kalamazoo Nature Center.

Kalamazoo Youth Development Network: Bringing Together Resources for Youth

The following interview was conducted with Meg Blinkiewicz (Executive Director), Elizabeth Garcia (Out of School Time Program Development Coach), Stacy Jackson (Out of School Time Program Development Coach) and Jenna Van Sponsen (Network Director) of Kalamazoo Youth Development Network.

Maybe a good place to begin would be to briefly describe the mission and vision of the Kalamazoo Youth Development (KYD) Network?

The Kalamazoo Youth Development Network is an intermediary organization working in the out-of-school time (OST) sector, providing support and partnering with 60 youth-serving organizations in Kalamazoo and Calhoun Counties.

Vision: All youth in Kalamazoo County are college, career, and community ready by the age of 21.

Mission: to ensure that all Kalamazoo County youth have access to high quality, youth-driven, culturally-agile, and equitable out-of-school (OST) programs that are part of a well-coordinated system.

 

Meg Blinkiewicz

According to its organizational history, since 2000 the Kalamazoo Youth Development (KYD) Network has transitioned to an intermediary organization building a sustainable out-of-school time (OST) system in Kalamazoo County. Why is OST an important consideration in a child’s overall development?

EG - OST programs offer a unique opportunity for youth to connect with other youths and adults not focusing solely on academics. Dance, art, writing, self-expression and more. It is a very unique opportunity that grounds youth in their community and allows for self discovery.

SJ - OST programs provide space that allows youth and adults to connect through authentic engagements that provide growth in Social Emotional Learning (SEL). We’ve learned that SEL skills are a critical foundation in the ability to be successful in education.  OST is where SEL skills can be highlighted and practiced in various learning environments. 

MB - OST programs provide a physically and psychologically safe environment for youth to gain the skills and knowledge to be their authentic selves.  OST programs offer high quality learning environments for youth to gain social emotional skills such as optimistic thinking, goal directed behavior, and relationship skills.  Our programs are designed to allow youth to make mistakes and not feel judged.  Adults model this approach by sharing their experiences and how they are learning new skills, along with youth. 

 

KYD’s 2018-2019 Annual Report pointed out the large gap between actual children served and the potential number of kids needing out-of-school time connection. Mention was made of an OST scan to determine how resources could be coordinated and used.  Is there an update?

MB - We will be conducting our next sector scan during the 2020-21 program year and will share the results at our December 2021 State of the Sector meeting. 

 

The KYD’s 2018-2019 Annual Report also mentions the rapid increase of OST

Stacy Jackson

providers in Kalamazoo County, to its present level of 50. Could you talk a bit about the challenges and opportunities of such growth among OST providers?

JV - It is important to note that the increase indicated in the annual report is not OST providers in Kalamazoo County in general - but an increase in the number of OST providers that are engaging with KYD Network and provided assessments and supports (i.e.  the Youth Program Quality Intervention (YPQI) from the David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality; the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) for social emotional learning; and more).

A challenge with this growth in engaged providers (whom we call “cohort members”) is that our capacity as an organization (staffing etc) did not grow at the same rate. This caused an increase in overall workload. Through this growth we saw an opportunity in 2019-2020 to return to our individualized coaching model to increase relationship building between coaches and organizations.

     

Jenna VanSpronsen

The same Annual Report speaks to the importance of social emotional learning. I’m wondering, from your view, what the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have had upon this particular aspect of learning? Especially with the move to remote learning?

EG - Some youth are thriving with a more flexible time schedule, and fostering stronger relationships with their families and some youth are not. Both can co-exist and it is important that we meet the needs of the individual youth and not try to cookie cut our approaches when it comes to supporting the growth of SEL skills.

 

SJ - The SEL aspect of learning has been magnified during Covid-19 and the transition to remote learning.  We have been able to further encourage engagement in development of SEL skills in adults who work with youth. 

 

MB -  based on an assessment of 100 youth this summer, youth SEL skills have decreased since last year.  This is a very small sample size so we will be continuing to work with our cohort members to gain a better understanding of where youth are with respect to their SEL skills so that we can implement strategies to better support youth.   We are partnering with other communities to share best practices as it relates to building community virtually and staying connected with our youth and families.

 

What are two things that you wish more people would understand about KYD?

 

EG - That we exist to support youth programs. We are about breaking barriers and reflecting as a sector for what will be our next steps.

JV - KYD Network works toward our vision by working with adults. We know that we as adults must do our own work first...and that by improving the skills of adults we then improve the outcomes for youth.

 

SJ - That we are here to provide support to adults in order for them to support youth.  We believe that youth have the answers to the problems we face and we have to be able to facilitate those answers out of youth by having high expectations and providing appropriate support.

 

MB - KYD Network believes in the power of we and the power of youth. We have created a strong OST sector that better understands how to listen to and elevate youth and how to co-create a community where youth can be college, career, and community ready by 21.

 

Elizabeth Garcia

What do you think the future holds for KYD?

MB - we are beginning our journey as an anti-racist organization and sector and starting to move to critical youth development.  These two fundamental shifts are exciting, challenging, and motivating to KYD Network and the OST sector.

 

SJ - I see our work becoming a National model for implementation.  We focus on collaboration, making space and building bridges.  That is what is necessary to bring forth the change we want to be a part of.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

JV - Financially, readers can donate to KYD Network online via  https://kydnet.org/kydnet-donate/ or via Venmo @kydnetwork  or checks can be sent via mail to Kalamazoo Youth Development Network at PO Box #51221 Kalamazoo, MI 49005.

SJ - Readers can follow our Facebook page, engage in our affinity group meetings, attend Action Friday meetings!  We need board and committee members to push forward this work in our community.

 

We Are Rooted in Love

I began writing this particular post focusing on practical things, like the need for a consistent, science-informed, science-led response to Covid-19. The necessity for an orderly transition of presidential power that's at the core of a democratic republic. The need to remember that almost half of U.S. voters didn't choose the president-elect. 

But then, I was drawn back to something Richard Rohr wrote, on his Daily Meditation website. 

Here's, in part, what he had to say: 

"Love is our deepest identity and what we are created in and for. To love someone “in God” is to love them for their own sake and not for what they do for us. Only a transformed consciousness sees another person as another self, as one who is also loved by Christ, and not as an object separate from ourselves on which we generously bestow favors. If we have not yet loved or if love wears us out, is it partly because other people are seen as tasks or commitments or threats, instead of as extensions of our own suffering and loneliness? Are they not in truth extensions of the suffering and loneliness of God?

When we live out of this truth of love, instead of the lie and human emotion of fear, we will at last begin to live. Love is always letting go of a fear. In the world of modern psychologizing, we have become very proficient at justifying our fears and avoiding simple love. The world will always teach us fear. Jesus will always command us to love. And when we seek the spiritual good of another, we at last forget our fears and ourselves."

I think Rohr is on to something.

During turbulent times, like we're currently experiencing, it's helpful to be reminded that we all experience fear and loneliness. Ignoring this reality is to ignore ourselves as fragile beings in a shared universe.

But we can take comfort, as Rohr points out, that our core identity is rooted in love.

For bible fans, this point was emphasized by John, perhaps most emphatically when he wrote: "Dear friends, since God loved us that much [to send Jesus] we surely ought to love one another." (1 John 4:11 NLT).  

A few verses later John says, "God is love. and all who live in love live in God." (1 John 4:16).

And it's not just Christians who profess this elemental link to love. Almost all the major religions of the world agree on this.

We are, as humans, bonded together by love.

Our actions don't always evidence this. But that doesn't stop the truth of it.

That's where faith and hope come in.

Paul, in one of his epistles wrote: "If I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn't love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it, but if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing." 
(1 Corinthians 13:2-3 NLT).

And to make it perfectly clear, Paul went on to offer one of the most beautiful definitions of love I've ever come across: "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." (1 Corn. 13: 4-7 NLT).

Of course, Paul wasn't saying this kind of agape love is easy!

It's actually quite difficult at times. And it's important to remember that love and like aren't the same thing. Like is an instinctual response. Love is an active decision. 

And ultimately, to a large extent, love isn't based in our intellect. It's based in our spirit.

For us living in 21st Century Western culture, this can be enormously difficult to grasp.

Fortunately, we have the examples of others. (Think, for instance, of John Lewis, or Fanny Lou Hamer). 

We have scriptures and books and spiritual practices if you're so inclined to search them. 

At the end of the day, it's good to be reminded that Jesus saw beyond blue and red. Or red, white and blue for that matter.

So did Gandhi. So did Mohammad.

We have them. And we have each other.

Photo Credits: Top, Good Housekeeping; Middle, Spiritual Earth; Bottom, Sweeping Heart Zen.