Posts
Saddam is dead. And what good shall come of this?
I don't think this will be helpful. As UN ambassador Richard Holbrook said tonight immediately afterwards, Saddam was not the one leading the insurgency and those engaged in the insurgency were not working to get Saddam back into power.
I think we will see additional violence, if indeed there can be any further violence beyond the mass killings we have now.
Will even the killing of an evil man really create that much good in the world?
Friday, December 29, 2006
Saturday, December 23, 2006
We Love War
Paul Campos, a Colorado law professor, writes quite well on the topic:
"At the outbreak of World War I, the streets of the great cities of Europe were filled with cheering crowds who welcomed that indescribable catastrophe as if it were a particularly exciting sporting event. A dark truth about human beings is that, at some perverse level of our psyches, we like war.
Nothing illustrates this better than the willingness of intelligent people in the grip of war fever to make arguments that, in any other mood, they would recognize as absurd. "
The rest of the article can be found via the link
to this site.
"At the outbreak of World War I, the streets of the great cities of Europe were filled with cheering crowds who welcomed that indescribable catastrophe as if it were a particularly exciting sporting event. A dark truth about human beings is that, at some perverse level of our psyches, we like war.
Nothing illustrates this better than the willingness of intelligent people in the grip of war fever to make arguments that, in any other mood, they would recognize as absurd. "
The rest of the article can be found via the link
to this site.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Blood Diamonds and the Church
I just heard a powerful, very well-done program on Chicago Public Radio's 'Worldview' program on the issues surrounding conflict diamonds. "Think, Americans, how much you pay to have a person killed, when you buy a cheap diamond," was the quote that stuck out most from a Congolese human rights worker. Also on how much money in exports leaves the country through colonial-model corporations when the people are starving as well as unable to access basic medical supplies. The audio should be up shortly here:
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/audio_library/wv_radec06.asp
Being in seminary, I was trying to think how pastors could best help staunch the trade of blood diamonds. Perhaps by the time engaged couples get to the pastor, the ring has already been brought. However, you could still preach, and speak to this issue with age groups that are most likely to be buying diamonds in the next few years; namely, high school and young adult ministries.
This also addresses in a substantial way the problem of the church-world relevance gap which I believe causes so many of our young idealistic people to leave the church. When we insulate ourselves in church fights and neglect global and community outreach, we miss the opportunity to build strong leadership in our churches that will lead us into more peaceful tomorrows.
Who will we allow to teach our youth about corporate responsibility?
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/audio_library/wv_radec06.asp
Being in seminary, I was trying to think how pastors could best help staunch the trade of blood diamonds. Perhaps by the time engaged couples get to the pastor, the ring has already been brought. However, you could still preach, and speak to this issue with age groups that are most likely to be buying diamonds in the next few years; namely, high school and young adult ministries.
This also addresses in a substantial way the problem of the church-world relevance gap which I believe causes so many of our young idealistic people to leave the church. When we insulate ourselves in church fights and neglect global and community outreach, we miss the opportunity to build strong leadership in our churches that will lead us into more peaceful tomorrows.
Who will we allow to teach our youth about corporate responsibility?
Priest Sentenced in Rwandan Massacres
The BBC reported today that a priest had been sentenced to fifteen years for his participation in the massacre of Tutsi refugees in his church. He ordered Hutu militants to bulldoze the church with all the people inside, and to shoot anyone who tried to escape.
Link to news story:
http://www.afrol.com/articles/22757 An African news source, also reporting on the rape of refugee girls and women by the priest, as well as France's refusal to extradite those who participated in the genocide.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/12/13/rwanda.priest.ap/ The AP report via CNN, which describes the massacre in more detail and the actions of other priests and nuns.
Myself in training to become a pastor, I think it's stories like these that frighten me most. What was happening inside this priest's mind when he committed this terrible act? What did he believe he would gain? What caused him to leave behind the Great Commandment?
Of course, clergy have done terrible things in many war zones around the world, particularly noted are those in this past century. There also of course are the many good clergy who acted justly and generously under great personal risk to themselves to protect the vulnerable.
I am still in search of a satisfying answer. It doesn't seem enough to say that clergy are people with (broken) morals, just like everyone else. Is it really only up to chance and individual conscience?
Link to news story:
http://www.afrol.com/articles/22757 An African news source, also reporting on the rape of refugee girls and women by the priest, as well as France's refusal to extradite those who participated in the genocide.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/12/13/rwanda.priest.ap/ The AP report via CNN, which describes the massacre in more detail and the actions of other priests and nuns.
Myself in training to become a pastor, I think it's stories like these that frighten me most. What was happening inside this priest's mind when he committed this terrible act? What did he believe he would gain? What caused him to leave behind the Great Commandment?
Of course, clergy have done terrible things in many war zones around the world, particularly noted are those in this past century. There also of course are the many good clergy who acted justly and generously under great personal risk to themselves to protect the vulnerable.
I am still in search of a satisfying answer. It doesn't seem enough to say that clergy are people with (broken) morals, just like everyone else. Is it really only up to chance and individual conscience?
How We Failed in Iraq
Six Reasons We Failed in Iraq
The Iraq Study Group report is out for public view now and I am heartened, if only for its accessibility. However, these days even NPR is little comfort; even they are missing the point. In a conflict where so few journalists venture outside their hotel rooms and the military propaganda is tired but still perpetuated, I would like to offer an alternate perspective based on my time as a human rights worker in the country during the early days of the U.S. invasion and occupation.
1. Failure to preserve infrastructure: This was not the Iraqis fault. At the point we captured Baghdad, it was us in control and us who had responsibility to prevent the looting, the breakdown. We were arresting anyone who had any association with the Ba’ath party, forgetting that a person had to register with the party even to get an elementary school teaching position. We took pride in ‘casting a wide net,’ and it was wide enough to do maximum damage. We decided that we didn't need to arrest those who began to loot government buildings and cultural heritage sites. Our 10,000 troops were too busy hanging out in the front yard at the Ministry of Oil.
2. Failure to rebuild: Again, we guarded the ministry of oil; even a year later, when driving through Baghdad and the surrounding countryside, the only evidence of U.S.-supported building you could see was massive military bases--in stark contrast to the numerous rotting hulks of municipal and federal buildings in the city center. This was humiliating as well as debilitating. We also left Iraq's previously functional phone network in a shambles and only gave phone connections to foreigners and occupying military. U.S. corporations' corruption left schools paid for but not rebuilt. Our shutdown of the military created mass unemployment and resulting mass hunger.
3. Failure to treat Iraqis as fully functional human beings: We could not bring ourselves to admit that they are as educated and capable of doing most of the work we insisted on doing poorly for them. We degraded them for the violence we provoked.
4. Failure to observe human rights and Geneva Conventions: This includes the first Fallujah massacre (where we used lethal force against a group of unarmed protestors, and lost our goodwill in that city); and the myriad devastating house raids, injury and killing of civilians, substandard prison conditions, the practice of 'disappearing' thousands of Iraqi citizens in our prison campus, and torture--which we never could admit was happening at a systematic level instead of only through seven 'bad apples.'
5. Failure to learn from history: When the British came to occupy Iraq, they employed 'divide and conquer,' placing the Sunni minority over the Shi'a majority. They were also run out in a year, when it became obvious that this was an occupation rather than a liberation. When we arrived to occupy Iraq, we tried to ally with Sistani, who didn’t really care, but his supporters did; in doing so we proved to the Sunni that none of them were safe in the New Iraq; nor were the Christians once Bush and our troops and our evangelists declared holy sanctioning of our actions there; and we sure invited the ire of Muqtada al Sadr, who believed that his Shi'a people should not align with us as the occupying power. This ushered in, perhaps more than anything, the sectarian violence and death squads we now hear the death tolls from daily.
6. Failure to recognize proportionality: We again ignore the enormous damage we have done in our human rights violations: A few pieces of candy or donated school supplies do not make up for killing a family member. But we hear it all the time, how kind and benevolent our soldiers are to the common Iraqi people.
None of this is news to us; except perhaps in its dissemination. All of this information we had readily available to us from on-the-ground experience of the human rights and relief organizations from year one of our military occupation. We were not willing to hear, and we have lost so very many lives since on account of our stubborness.
Still, I posit, we really succeeded at all we actually wanted to do: Bomb heavily, get rid of the man blocking us from the oil, and take the oil, making lots of money for our corporations in the meantime. We planned for that and we did that. (While Iraqi citizens were lined up on the roads in 24-hour waits to get a tank of gasoline, we were reporting record exports). We didn’t have any other real goals beyond that, and that is why we did not plan for those parts.
If anything, we created the situation we are now in to be even more profitable to us: We can’t possibly leave now; we’ve been saying that for a couple years now—we’re making so much money, and But it’s already a civil war. How much worse do you really think it will get? And it’s only the puppet government, with all its own human rights violations, that’s worried we might leave.
The Iraq Study Group report is out for public view now and I am heartened, if only for its accessibility. However, these days even NPR is little comfort; even they are missing the point. In a conflict where so few journalists venture outside their hotel rooms and the military propaganda is tired but still perpetuated, I would like to offer an alternate perspective based on my time as a human rights worker in the country during the early days of the U.S. invasion and occupation.
1. Failure to preserve infrastructure: This was not the Iraqis fault. At the point we captured Baghdad, it was us in control and us who had responsibility to prevent the looting, the breakdown. We were arresting anyone who had any association with the Ba’ath party, forgetting that a person had to register with the party even to get an elementary school teaching position. We took pride in ‘casting a wide net,’ and it was wide enough to do maximum damage. We decided that we didn't need to arrest those who began to loot government buildings and cultural heritage sites. Our 10,000 troops were too busy hanging out in the front yard at the Ministry of Oil.
2. Failure to rebuild: Again, we guarded the ministry of oil; even a year later, when driving through Baghdad and the surrounding countryside, the only evidence of U.S.-supported building you could see was massive military bases--in stark contrast to the numerous rotting hulks of municipal and federal buildings in the city center. This was humiliating as well as debilitating. We also left Iraq's previously functional phone network in a shambles and only gave phone connections to foreigners and occupying military. U.S. corporations' corruption left schools paid for but not rebuilt. Our shutdown of the military created mass unemployment and resulting mass hunger.
3. Failure to treat Iraqis as fully functional human beings: We could not bring ourselves to admit that they are as educated and capable of doing most of the work we insisted on doing poorly for them. We degraded them for the violence we provoked.
4. Failure to observe human rights and Geneva Conventions: This includes the first Fallujah massacre (where we used lethal force against a group of unarmed protestors, and lost our goodwill in that city); and the myriad devastating house raids, injury and killing of civilians, substandard prison conditions, the practice of 'disappearing' thousands of Iraqi citizens in our prison campus, and torture--which we never could admit was happening at a systematic level instead of only through seven 'bad apples.'
5. Failure to learn from history: When the British came to occupy Iraq, they employed 'divide and conquer,' placing the Sunni minority over the Shi'a majority. They were also run out in a year, when it became obvious that this was an occupation rather than a liberation. When we arrived to occupy Iraq, we tried to ally with Sistani, who didn’t really care, but his supporters did; in doing so we proved to the Sunni that none of them were safe in the New Iraq; nor were the Christians once Bush and our troops and our evangelists declared holy sanctioning of our actions there; and we sure invited the ire of Muqtada al Sadr, who believed that his Shi'a people should not align with us as the occupying power. This ushered in, perhaps more than anything, the sectarian violence and death squads we now hear the death tolls from daily.
6. Failure to recognize proportionality: We again ignore the enormous damage we have done in our human rights violations: A few pieces of candy or donated school supplies do not make up for killing a family member. But we hear it all the time, how kind and benevolent our soldiers are to the common Iraqi people.
None of this is news to us; except perhaps in its dissemination. All of this information we had readily available to us from on-the-ground experience of the human rights and relief organizations from year one of our military occupation. We were not willing to hear, and we have lost so very many lives since on account of our stubborness.
Still, I posit, we really succeeded at all we actually wanted to do: Bomb heavily, get rid of the man blocking us from the oil, and take the oil, making lots of money for our corporations in the meantime. We planned for that and we did that. (While Iraqi citizens were lined up on the roads in 24-hour waits to get a tank of gasoline, we were reporting record exports). We didn’t have any other real goals beyond that, and that is why we did not plan for those parts.
If anything, we created the situation we are now in to be even more profitable to us: We can’t possibly leave now; we’ve been saying that for a couple years now—we’re making so much money, and But it’s already a civil war. How much worse do you really think it will get? And it’s only the puppet government, with all its own human rights violations, that’s worried we might leave.
Lebanon
Lebanon is heating up again and is looking very fragile at the moment; we had hoped it would go differently for the poor people there (ya haram, ya muskeni). My previous supervisor, Rob, and I were working with Lebanese church and seminary leaders to create a study travel program on interfaith perspectives following the devastation of this past summer's war. It's not looking too good right now, both for institutional seminary support as well as for current political realities.
I first penned the following poem after my first visit to Lebanon and learning about the terrible war experienced there during the 80's. Rob had been a human rights activist there several years ago while his father worked at the seminary. My writing reflects the conversation I wanted to have with him about the differing experiences of two human rights workers in two different contexts, and the difficulty we had in talking on this issue.
Lebanon
August 16, 2005
Lebanon.
I want to let it in
but I can’t.
I want to put myself into that place,
I want to have felt to have seen to have touched to
have witnessed
everything
but even small stories
stir up nightmares
and I’m not so sure I can
hear these stories now
even in the daytime.
My war was not your war, I think
that is, the war I chose to visit
in my age and in my time
a passing traveler, freely involved
and not forced
like those whose blood was there
Does ‘my war’ even compare?
In numbers in size in scope in length in destruction in insanity
In bodies.
And yet all war, is.
To cope with these realities
not just a passed moment in history but
still, now, ongoing
Can I muster any more compassion
or comprehension
to encompass all of this?
I am not enough,
measured, and found wanting.
I first penned the following poem after my first visit to Lebanon and learning about the terrible war experienced there during the 80's. Rob had been a human rights activist there several years ago while his father worked at the seminary. My writing reflects the conversation I wanted to have with him about the differing experiences of two human rights workers in two different contexts, and the difficulty we had in talking on this issue.
Lebanon
August 16, 2005
Lebanon.
I want to let it in
but I can’t.
I want to put myself into that place,
I want to have felt to have seen to have touched to
have witnessed
everything
but even small stories
stir up nightmares
and I’m not so sure I can
hear these stories now
even in the daytime.
My war was not your war, I think
that is, the war I chose to visit
in my age and in my time
a passing traveler, freely involved
and not forced
like those whose blood was there
Does ‘my war’ even compare?
In numbers in size in scope in length in destruction in insanity
In bodies.
And yet all war, is.
To cope with these realities
not just a passed moment in history but
still, now, ongoing
Can I muster any more compassion
or comprehension
to encompass all of this?
I am not enough,
measured, and found wanting.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Fully God and Fully Human
Jesus,
Whatever else beyond our comprehension he was,
Was born into the world an earthly being
The same way all the rest of us earthly beings were:
Between a woman’s legs,
With all the blood and feces and amniosis
And with all the screaming
And gasping for air
That birth entails.
For all his other human experiences
And his violent suffering bleeding death,
Why do we insist
On creating an inhumanly calm and sanitized
Nativity?
Written for Dr. Vitor Westhelle
Systematic Theology
Recently published in SIMUL, the anthology of Lutheran poetry.
Whatever else beyond our comprehension he was,
Was born into the world an earthly being
The same way all the rest of us earthly beings were:
Between a woman’s legs,
With all the blood and feces and amniosis
And with all the screaming
And gasping for air
That birth entails.
For all his other human experiences
And his violent suffering bleeding death,
Why do we insist
On creating an inhumanly calm and sanitized
Nativity?
Written for Dr. Vitor Westhelle
Systematic Theology
Recently published in SIMUL, the anthology of Lutheran poetry.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Boycotting the 'Holiday' Boycott
(revised from last year)
I am one Christian who would like to buck this year's fundamentalist trend by wishing all of my neighbors 'Happy Holidays.' By this, I mean all the holidays: Christmas, yes, but also Thanksgiving, New Year's, and Epiphany. For six long weeks we have a number of holidays, or 'holy-days,' and I see wise stewardship of resources in creating advertising that lasts an entire season.
Where is the merit behind the extremists' claims of a war against Christmas? I do not see what any truly faithless person would find meaningful in celebrating our holy day anyway. However, I do see that Christmas can be a means of grace, a doorway by which questions of faith behind traditions come to be asked, and people search for meaning which goes deeper than piles of gift-wrap.
If anything should be boycotted at Christmas, it is materialism itself, not gestures of hospitality and welcome. Our retail centers are not, and should not purport to be, Christian institutions. I do not go to Kmart seeking faith, I go seeking socks. A quick review of Wal-Mart's exploitative personnel policies certainly demonstrates it is not a Christian institution. But, the extremists are not boycotting Wal-Mart for its treatment of its poor.
What disturbs me most about the 'inclusive greetings boycott' is the implications of anti-Semitism. Hanukah is the most prominent non-Christian holiday celebrated at this time. Why would we want to so forcefully exclude Jews from our greetings of goodwill? Meanwhile, I would like to wish our Jewish friends Happy Holidays as well. Instead of picking this fight, I wish these extremists would get off their behinds and focus on feeding the poor, caring for the sick, visiting those in prison, and working for peace. That would be a useful Christian witness, any time of year.
I am one Christian who would like to buck this year's fundamentalist trend by wishing all of my neighbors 'Happy Holidays.' By this, I mean all the holidays: Christmas, yes, but also Thanksgiving, New Year's, and Epiphany. For six long weeks we have a number of holidays, or 'holy-days,' and I see wise stewardship of resources in creating advertising that lasts an entire season.
Where is the merit behind the extremists' claims of a war against Christmas? I do not see what any truly faithless person would find meaningful in celebrating our holy day anyway. However, I do see that Christmas can be a means of grace, a doorway by which questions of faith behind traditions come to be asked, and people search for meaning which goes deeper than piles of gift-wrap.
If anything should be boycotted at Christmas, it is materialism itself, not gestures of hospitality and welcome. Our retail centers are not, and should not purport to be, Christian institutions. I do not go to Kmart seeking faith, I go seeking socks. A quick review of Wal-Mart's exploitative personnel policies certainly demonstrates it is not a Christian institution. But, the extremists are not boycotting Wal-Mart for its treatment of its poor.
What disturbs me most about the 'inclusive greetings boycott' is the implications of anti-Semitism. Hanukah is the most prominent non-Christian holiday celebrated at this time. Why would we want to so forcefully exclude Jews from our greetings of goodwill? Meanwhile, I would like to wish our Jewish friends Happy Holidays as well. Instead of picking this fight, I wish these extremists would get off their behinds and focus on feeding the poor, caring for the sick, visiting those in prison, and working for peace. That would be a useful Christian witness, any time of year.
When God Screams
In my human rights ministries class last night, a student presented a collection of photos he had made of torture victims around the world. He is bringing us a CD of the collection and some of the documents our government has written defending these practices for our own use in congregations.
The reaction that I had was that of God screaming in my ear. It wasn't that I found the pictures shocking; I'd seen all that before. Rather, all that this student was saying, I had first-hand experience with in Baghdad; I have been too silent. The stories that I told are not being told right now in ways that people can understand them. Even I don't necessarily understand the stories once they've been put into heady, detached language or quick sound-bites.
So, as my life has gotten quite comfortable here in my new seminary; where I have little to fear in my own daily life; where I have an abundance of friends and few real challenges; I need to get a little more uncomfortable. I need to get back into churches, speaking about what I have seen. Getting back to showing Iraqis as real human beings, every bit as much as we ourselves are. Not deserving of what we have wrought on them, and confessing aloud that what is happening there now is a direct result of what we have done.
I said in Chapel this week as we lit candles for Advent that I had been up late nights waiting for something, only wishing I knew what it was. I have been searching for how to be a more faithful servant for God; and toward this I have been better prepared, and re-paired, in these past few months than I imagined possible. I think things are becoming a little clearer.
I have the time; I don't have parish commitments this year. I have the background; I even have pictures, and the ability to speak so people in congregations can hear. I will find the audiences.
Or, I am convinced, God will not let me sleep at night anymore.
The reaction that I had was that of God screaming in my ear. It wasn't that I found the pictures shocking; I'd seen all that before. Rather, all that this student was saying, I had first-hand experience with in Baghdad; I have been too silent. The stories that I told are not being told right now in ways that people can understand them. Even I don't necessarily understand the stories once they've been put into heady, detached language or quick sound-bites.
So, as my life has gotten quite comfortable here in my new seminary; where I have little to fear in my own daily life; where I have an abundance of friends and few real challenges; I need to get a little more uncomfortable. I need to get back into churches, speaking about what I have seen. Getting back to showing Iraqis as real human beings, every bit as much as we ourselves are. Not deserving of what we have wrought on them, and confessing aloud that what is happening there now is a direct result of what we have done.
I said in Chapel this week as we lit candles for Advent that I had been up late nights waiting for something, only wishing I knew what it was. I have been searching for how to be a more faithful servant for God; and toward this I have been better prepared, and re-paired, in these past few months than I imagined possible. I think things are becoming a little clearer.
I have the time; I don't have parish commitments this year. I have the background; I even have pictures, and the ability to speak so people in congregations can hear. I will find the audiences.
Or, I am convinced, God will not let me sleep at night anymore.
Understanding Torture: Resources
I have this handwritten list of good books for understanding torture, sitting on my bookshelf next to me, and before I lose it I would like to share it with you.
In Our Own Best Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All: by William Schultz, 235pp
Ordinary People, Unspeakable Acts: the Dynamics of Torture, by John Conroy
Torture Worldwide: An Affront to Human Dignity, by Amnesty International
Racism and the Administration of Justice, by Amnesty
Stopping the Torture Trade, by Amnesty
Crimes of Hate, Conspiracy of Silence (hate crimes against GLBT people) by Amnesty
Hidden Scandal, Secret Shame: Torture and Ill-Treatment of Children, by Amnesty
Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds: Torture and Ill-Treatment of Women, by Amnesty
Through the Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth, by Sr. Dianna Ortiz
Torture, by Fr. John S Perry
In Our Own Best Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All: by William Schultz, 235pp
Ordinary People, Unspeakable Acts: the Dynamics of Torture, by John Conroy
Torture Worldwide: An Affront to Human Dignity, by Amnesty International
Racism and the Administration of Justice, by Amnesty
Stopping the Torture Trade, by Amnesty
Crimes of Hate, Conspiracy of Silence (hate crimes against GLBT people) by Amnesty
Hidden Scandal, Secret Shame: Torture and Ill-Treatment of Children, by Amnesty
Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds: Torture and Ill-Treatment of Women, by Amnesty
Through the Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth, by Sr. Dianna Ortiz
Torture, by Fr. John S Perry
Monday, December 04, 2006
Courage to Resist; PTSD Treatment of Troops
Today I was glued to NPR's report on the treatment of soldiers affected by PTSD at Fort Carson. Given the symptoms they describe as well as the base's response, I feel more strongly than ever that we must be actively training pastors to provide spiritual care and counseling to returning soldiers.
Report is here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6576505
I also have been reading up on the Iraq Vets Against the War website, and today found a new campaign, called Courage to Resist. It covers the stories of U.S. soldiers who have refused to go to Iraq and are now facing court martial:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
If you are a veteran of Iraq (1991 or now), you can join Iraq Vets Against the War, or you can simply avail yourself of the comprehensive resources for veterans available on their website (not just anti-war issues, but health and education benefits, etc.)
www.ivaw.org Iraq Vets Against the War
Report is here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6576505
I also have been reading up on the Iraq Vets Against the War website, and today found a new campaign, called Courage to Resist. It covers the stories of U.S. soldiers who have refused to go to Iraq and are now facing court martial:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
If you are a veteran of Iraq (1991 or now), you can join Iraq Vets Against the War, or you can simply avail yourself of the comprehensive resources for veterans available on their website (not just anti-war issues, but health and education benefits, etc.)
www.ivaw.org Iraq Vets Against the War
Something Different
An assertion of independence written during my Lutheran seminary days, when I received some of the following responses to my pursuing human rights ministry, student activism, and making the denominational change to Presbyterian:
Something Different
I’m doing something different.
I know
Different isn’t cool.
Not here, not among us, it’s unconventional, confusing
maybe even frightening
it upsets the way we do things around here.
But I’m doing something different.
You said,
“But if you’re not doing what the rest of us are doing, then I don’t know who you are.”
Sure you do. You know my
faith and my character, my deep dreams
and hurts
I’ve shared them all with you and
I will keep sharing
and I will support you and your dreams but
I am doing something different.
July 25, 2005
Something Different
I’m doing something different.
I know
Different isn’t cool.
Not here, not among us, it’s unconventional, confusing
maybe even frightening
it upsets the way we do things around here.
But I’m doing something different.
You said,
“But if you’re not doing what the rest of us are doing, then I don’t know who you are.”
Sure you do. You know my
faith and my character, my deep dreams
and hurts
I’ve shared them all with you and
I will keep sharing
and I will support you and your dreams but
I am doing something different.
July 25, 2005
Sunday, December 03, 2006
What Will CTS Look Like Next Year?
Editorial:
(Written for the CTS Prophet student newspaper)
What Will CTS’ Community Look Like Next Year?
If you participated in last week’s Chapel service organized by ISO [International Students' Organization, you should have heard the message loud and clear: Community is important to us. It has been in the past, and despite major changes in student housing, it continues to be a top concern.
Some of you know I was around for Benny Liew’s Gospels class a year ago, before deciding to transfer here. During that time, I got to know about community life here through that class and mooching off Community Lunch, thanks to hospitable classmates who waved me in. I have been thinking how the life of the community, or at least the student body, has changed since then.
I’ve heard from students who have been here longer than me that McGiffert functioned as the center of community life. Not just in friendships and close proximity, but in on-campus and community organizing also. It was space for international students especially to be visible and integrated with the rest of our seminary community—particularly spouses and children who can’t work in this country and don’t know anyone else. Those needs are still there, even if student housing isn’t.
As I look around now, I wonder where the center of our community is. What pulls us all together? Is it class? We are spread out among many classes and different days, and there are many people from my orientation group I haven’t seen since September. Is it worship? Well…we can really turn out for our faculty tenure celebrations, but other days it’s a little sparse. So I started asking around, and the consensus arrived at was: ....lunch. Lunch? Uff-da.
For some of us, our life realities—families, work, and long distances—mean that we simply can’t be here as much as we would like. For others, we arrive at seminary having left our former lives behind, and are starting from scratch. We’re looking for community along with classes, a place to belong and a place to matter.
Except perhaps for those of us camped out on George Commons couches, we are now a 100% commuter campus. This year we still have a core of people who used to live together on campus that keep the rest of us together in this diaspora, but as time passes, our community life faces radical change. Will we become the kind of campus where most students just show up, take their classes, and leave, and whatever community that happens is, at best, accidental? Will we continue to think of ourselves as too-small, too-poor, too-busy, and too-stressed to get involved in life beyond the books? Will seminary become for us a mere inconvenience on the way to hoped-for better things in our futures?
We will have to change also, to keep what we hold most precious about this place. We need to work together to find creative solutions to our housing problem. We students will have to pitch in more to help Alison and Neil organize community life. I am grateful that we now have the newspaper as another way to meet the need for communication in this place, and particularly to get to know each other better. I am hopeful for a good student government, that even when we can’t all be here all the time, we will have people we trust to raise our voices and needs when it counts. Finish finals and rest up over Winter Break, and come back in the new term ready to help us all through these times.
(Written for the CTS Prophet student newspaper)
What Will CTS’ Community Look Like Next Year?
If you participated in last week’s Chapel service organized by ISO [International Students' Organization, you should have heard the message loud and clear: Community is important to us. It has been in the past, and despite major changes in student housing, it continues to be a top concern.
Some of you know I was around for Benny Liew’s Gospels class a year ago, before deciding to transfer here. During that time, I got to know about community life here through that class and mooching off Community Lunch, thanks to hospitable classmates who waved me in. I have been thinking how the life of the community, or at least the student body, has changed since then.
I’ve heard from students who have been here longer than me that McGiffert functioned as the center of community life. Not just in friendships and close proximity, but in on-campus and community organizing also. It was space for international students especially to be visible and integrated with the rest of our seminary community—particularly spouses and children who can’t work in this country and don’t know anyone else. Those needs are still there, even if student housing isn’t.
As I look around now, I wonder where the center of our community is. What pulls us all together? Is it class? We are spread out among many classes and different days, and there are many people from my orientation group I haven’t seen since September. Is it worship? Well…we can really turn out for our faculty tenure celebrations, but other days it’s a little sparse. So I started asking around, and the consensus arrived at was: ....lunch. Lunch? Uff-da.
For some of us, our life realities—families, work, and long distances—mean that we simply can’t be here as much as we would like. For others, we arrive at seminary having left our former lives behind, and are starting from scratch. We’re looking for community along with classes, a place to belong and a place to matter.
Except perhaps for those of us camped out on George Commons couches, we are now a 100% commuter campus. This year we still have a core of people who used to live together on campus that keep the rest of us together in this diaspora, but as time passes, our community life faces radical change. Will we become the kind of campus where most students just show up, take their classes, and leave, and whatever community that happens is, at best, accidental? Will we continue to think of ourselves as too-small, too-poor, too-busy, and too-stressed to get involved in life beyond the books? Will seminary become for us a mere inconvenience on the way to hoped-for better things in our futures?
We will have to change also, to keep what we hold most precious about this place. We need to work together to find creative solutions to our housing problem. We students will have to pitch in more to help Alison and Neil organize community life. I am grateful that we now have the newspaper as another way to meet the need for communication in this place, and particularly to get to know each other better. I am hopeful for a good student government, that even when we can’t all be here all the time, we will have people we trust to raise our voices and needs when it counts. Finish finals and rest up over Winter Break, and come back in the new term ready to help us all through these times.
Without Sanctuary
I wrote this after viewing the ‘Without Sanctuary’ exhibit at the Chicago Historical Society, which was a powerful visual memorial to the practice of lynching black people in our country. Several of the photographs on display were actually souvenir postcards sent by members of the crowd at these executions; one showed an entire family of young children brought out to witness these acts for an ‘entertaining’ afternoon.
The verge of tears is shaky ground:
Angry
Shocked
But I shouldn’t be
I knew this had happened before.
Still,
Pictures drive history into your heart
Close to home
Remembering Iraq
Palestine, soldiers
Smiling over corpses
Just like in these photos
We haven’t changed so much since then
Mangled bodies
Extreme violence
As family entertainment:
Come on! Bring the kids!
In the Museum you hear
Soft gasps of horror
Now.
The role of the faithful is both to struggle with,
and to die with--if necessary.
Yet who can be prepared
For things like this?
August 2005
The verge of tears is shaky ground:
Angry
Shocked
But I shouldn’t be
I knew this had happened before.
Still,
Pictures drive history into your heart
Close to home
Remembering Iraq
Palestine, soldiers
Smiling over corpses
Just like in these photos
We haven’t changed so much since then
Mangled bodies
Extreme violence
As family entertainment:
Come on! Bring the kids!
In the Museum you hear
Soft gasps of horror
Now.
The role of the faithful is both to struggle with,
and to die with--if necessary.
Yet who can be prepared
For things like this?
August 2005
King Once Had A Dream
This is another part of my recently retrieved poetry collection from summer 2005, which seems just as pertinent now:
King once had a dream. And now,
My dream for us today?
Can I dream?
Are there any more dreams to dream? Now?
Or am I foolish
I have no wisdom
No right words
Many years of ‘enlightenment training’
is not enough.
So difficult to change!
This is the white whine
Intoxicating,
Overwhelming, despair
guilt and not knowing
it’s little consolation to the oppressed:
But white despair
is there.
Sometimes it seems the only way
to un-do
is to un-be
it runs so deep, so long, so wide
So difficult to change
But that doesn’t mean give up;
To give up is to die
and love is deep too
and long, and wide
beyond us,
and our failing, inadequate steps.
We must try to go on
In any imperfect way.
Or perhaps
In the least imperfect way
we can.
King once had a dream. And now,
My dream for us today?
Can I dream?
Are there any more dreams to dream? Now?
Or am I foolish
I have no wisdom
No right words
Many years of ‘enlightenment training’
is not enough.
So difficult to change!
This is the white whine
Intoxicating,
Overwhelming, despair
guilt and not knowing
it’s little consolation to the oppressed:
But white despair
is there.
Sometimes it seems the only way
to un-do
is to un-be
it runs so deep, so long, so wide
So difficult to change
But that doesn’t mean give up;
To give up is to die
and love is deep too
and long, and wide
beyond us,
and our failing, inadequate steps.
We must try to go on
In any imperfect way.
Or perhaps
In the least imperfect way
we can.
Friday, December 01, 2006
The Horrors of War, 1
I've been experimenting with what I can post here, and in this semester of the academic study of war and torture, I recalled my sketchbook from when I was in the Middle East.
The Horrors of War: Al-Amariyyeh, the cry of the mothers
This depicts the US bombing of the Al-Amariyyeh bomb shelter in suburban Baghdad, killing 400 civilians, primarily children and women, Valentine's Day, 1991. The parents were either outside in the early morning hours working or doing laundry and cooking. The US justifies the bombing for the phone interchange equipment located in the building above. The force of the blast incinerated the people inside, and created 'shadows' of them against the wall. It is now a haunting memorial.
I have five pages to share, each based on places I've visited and the stories of the horrors of war. Still, several years later as I look at them, I realize all too well these places and these stories are not unique. Pictures of Palestinians rounded up by Israelis in the past, look curiously like pictures of Iraqis rounded up by Americans today.
What have we learned?
What must we learn?
The Horrors of War: Al-Amariyyeh, the cry of the mothers
This depicts the US bombing of the Al-Amariyyeh bomb shelter in suburban Baghdad, killing 400 civilians, primarily children and women, Valentine's Day, 1991. The parents were either outside in the early morning hours working or doing laundry and cooking. The US justifies the bombing for the phone interchange equipment located in the building above. The force of the blast incinerated the people inside, and created 'shadows' of them against the wall. It is now a haunting memorial.
I have five pages to share, each based on places I've visited and the stories of the horrors of war. Still, several years later as I look at them, I realize all too well these places and these stories are not unique. Pictures of Palestinians rounded up by Israelis in the past, look curiously like pictures of Iraqis rounded up by Americans today.
What have we learned?
What must we learn?
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