New CTS Building Anything But 'Green'

Published 10/14/09 at http://www.hpherald.com/pg4.html

Can a seminary really build a ‘green’ building while destroying a beloved community garden in the process?

Chicago Theological Seminary and the UofC will gather at 2pm, Thursday, October 15, to break ground on the new seminary building at 60th and Dorchester. A few weeks later, they’ll pave paradise in favor of a parking lot.

LEEDS, the ratings system for ‘green’ construction to which CTS aspires, specifies that a building not only be environmentally friendly in construction process and function, but also that it contribute to overall quality of life for its inhabitants and location. An active community garden which unites generations, classes, and races as the centerpiece of this block does well in this regard; looking out over an urban wasteland of empty lots does nothing good.

It’s important to know that when the Board of Trustees and administration of CTS had the opportunity to use their influence to stop this destruction, they chose not to do so, despite alumni pressure.

Throughout this decision-making process, CTS has operated as a silent accomplice. I can understand why community garden supporters might not want to challenge the UofC for its community development ethics; it’s an 800 lb. gorilla. But here is a seminary that is about to reap enormous gains from the neighborhood’s loss, earning fame for preaching its concern for creation and the world’s oppressed, and saying nothing about destruction done on its behalf in our own backyard.

Only a few students including myself ever went down to meet with folks at garden, local churches, schools, farmers’ markets, or the Experimental Station; the administration initiated no genuine efforts to do so.

This silence is not unique to the garden’s destruction. For years, CTS has been completely disengaged from the neighborhood--so much so that hardly anyone realizes there’s a seminary above the Seminary Co-op Bookstore in the first place.

Lest readers think I’m a chronically disgruntled alum, I used to love this school. I was editor of the student paper, student government co-president, student representative to the Board of Trustees. I worked in the Development office and gave generously of my personal time and money. I was even on a design committee and participating in LEEDs discussions until it became clear that accountability to the surrounding neighborhood would be no serious priority. At every step, I raised concerns for community preservation and neighborhood accountability, and my words fell on deaf ears.

We need to hold CTS accountable, and not allow their silence to protect them. The onus is on CTS to prove itself prophetic outside its walls. As this ‘progressive’ seminary leaves one ivory tower to build an ivory fortress south of the midway, it is up to the people who care to demand they shoulder the responsibility for what they’ve done.

Any institution can speak prophetically, and can even gain a little fame and fortune for doing so. It’s entirely another thing for the administration, Trustees, faculty, and students to walk their talk.

Rev. Le Anne Clausen de Montes
M.Div. CTS 2009

Burr Oak, and the Resurrection of the Body

As we’re writing this, the disturbing news of events at Burr Oak Cemetery still fills the media. It seems several cemetery workers decided to re-sell burial plots that were already filled, dumping the bodies into mass graves. Thousands of families have been affected. Some feel plagued by guilt that they didn’t visit sooner. Others are experiencing grief anew, especially the loss of link to family and past that their loved ones’ place of burial meant to them. The authorities are bewildered by the complications of the case, not knowing if the remains could ever be matched accurately to their descendants again.

In our lives and travels for human rights work, we have both experienced the horror of mass graves in areas of war around the world. Families are desperate for some indication that this is their loved one, as part of their ability to grieve.It is difficult to imagine how human beings could ever do something like this, and also difficult to imagine what could comfort families affected by such crimes. These events have also raised for us, and perhaps you too, some questions about the resurrection of the body.

For example, we recall Mary’s distress on Easter morning when Jesus’ body appeared to have been taken, and she begged the groundskeeper to tell her what he did with the body. However, Jesus himself was standing before her, resurrected in body as well as spirit. We remember also the valley of dry bones, when God resurrected the bodies right before Ezekiel’s eyes.

Christians the world over for the past two millennia recite the Apostle’s Creed, which declares our faith in not only Christ’s resurrection, but the resurrection of our own bodies. Paul writes powerfully in 1 Corinthians 15:35-44, ‘These bodies will die, but the bodies that are raised will live forever.’ Paul goes on to write that even our bodies which are broken and become ill during our earthly lives will be healed and made strong in the resurrection. We remember as we read this not only those who have died, but all in our congregation and community who are waiting for healing from many illnesses and injuries.

As Christians, we may be called to any number of healing roles to support those who suffer as described above. We may become medical workers, or we may be spiritual or psychological caregivers. Others are called to be investigators who discover the truth behind acts of violence and violation; and others hold accountable the perpetrators of these abuses. And all of us can extend to those who suffer a community of care and listening, even without specialized skills or knowing precisely what to do when another hurts.

Whether in terrible events, or terrible illnesses, we need not suffer alone. Even when our human skills to heal may not be enough, God promises us ultimate healing in the resurrection of our bodies and souls. We will be reunited with all we have lost in the community of heaven.

If you would like to visit more with us about these questions, please let us know. We would also like to recommend Mitch Albom’s book and movie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. We viewed the movie recently and found it a beautiful dialogue on this topic.

Peace, Pastors Jorge y Le Anne Montes-Clausen

Darkly Spinning Carousel

Tonight I went to see the Court Theater's production of Carousel, one of Rodgers' and Hammerstein's classics. I was blown away.

I think I expected something light, comic, perhaps sappy or cheesy. After all, wasn't this a Technicolor film of the fifties?

This was not that, even if one is familiar with all the songs. No, this production carried a gravitas I wholly unexpected. Here was laid out starkly the issues of turn-of-the-century industrial living that we still face today: grueling factory (sweatshop) labor, domestic violence, economic disparity and economic despair.

Now, before I go much further, I have to admit I never saw the original production or the film. YouTube provides some clips. The film I hope to rent someday; as for the play, on account of growing up poor and rural, I have missed much of the standard repertoire of even high school productions.

Still, here tonight were no carousel colors, except for the owner of the carnival ride herself, in stark contrast to the worn, faded clothes of the fishermen and mill girls. Poverty and the lack of options for women were cast at the forefront and the romances became the background, the opposite of how this has often been staged according to several sources I looked up. Billy is not so glamourous as troubled, and it is heartbreaking to see him finally come together for the purpose of raising his child right, only to careen down the wrong path for the right reasons, to his death.

The actress who played the wise cousin/gatekeeper of Heaven/graduation speaker was just remarkable. Ernestine Jackson has this beautiful deep voice for both singing and speaking, and has reknown for multiple Broadway roles, as well as some stints on 'Law and Order,' and a role in 'Bonfire of the Vanities.'

There was a disturbing theology at work in the middle of the play that I'm still mulling over. When Billy Bigelow dies, he wants to see the Judge himself, but is only assigned a local magistrate. Shortly before he dies, his friend tells him that only the wealthy ever get their cases heard by the Supreme Court, and that's what it's like in heaven, also. For me this stirs up thoughts on the current 'Prosperity Gospel: Wealth and blessing, wealth as indicative of goodness; poverty as indicative of cursedness; economic justice issues abound.
Curiously enough, heaven also offers Billy the chance to go back and attend to unfinished business. It's almost abrupt, hastened over, the actions that he takes--it's careening towards the final number. (And after I looked it up, it does this also in the movie of some decades ago).

But, in other thoughts and impressionts--what is this carousel but an empty entertainment, a colorful facade? It is good to enjoy a little for amusement but it is also the source and symbol of much pain, of broken promises and dreams. Actually, it is not much fun at all in the backdrop of the wider social problems. Is it an enigma?

The Hope in Harry Potter

There's two good articles I've read about Harry Potter lately, so the topic's been on my mind. (It's amazing I have this kind of time right now to think of things, and also to write them down. I'll miss it when I'm back to the daily grind). One is TIME magazine's 'Person of the Year' profile of J.K. Rowling, a runner-up for the competition, reflecting on her work and its meaning. The other appears in 'The Lutheran' magazine, on why one pastor has no trouble with his grandchildren reading Potter.

I've been writing around the edges of a pit in my stomach that doesn't want to go back to school this coming semester, that doesn't want to do much anything except hide actually--it's a lousy time to be a leader in our student government if you ask me. Our beloved dean is headed on sabbatical, and the other powers that be seem not too interested in the life and wellbeing of students, let alone the neighborhood. In fact, there's a lot of forces that don't seem to be too concerned about the place in which we live and the wellbeing of people. One gets the sense that some would like the students to shut up and go away, in occasionally politer terms. I've been known to say out loud I'd rather take my chances in prison this spring, which is very well likely where I'll be once the SOA trial is over. In the meantime, I've dropped to part-time, and I don't hang out on campus much anymore.

Still, perhaps now is not the time to hide, behind bars or otherwise. And this is where I find great courage in reading and re-reading Potter. (I might also mention the Lord of the Rings, and the Chronicles of Narnia, epics I never thought I'd embrace before recent years). I need to hear, over and over again, that people can go wrong in the pursuit of their perceived good; to recognize it when it's happening in leaders I see, and to take warning it could happen in myself. I need to hear that there is hope in love, and there is hope even when those we love and who love us can't be there to help us. In fact, I might have still remained in seminary up to this point in good part due to reading Potter.

The thing I appreciate most about Rowling's archetypes in Potter is that they do help me to see, bad in good people and good in bad (or, rather, those who are causing harm and fear) people, and to seek to love them however I can. Yes, in my world I can identify Gilderoy Lockharts and Severus Snapes and Lucius Malfoys and any manner of Ministry officials. (I even knew a crooked dean once at another seminary who resembled in face and body and voice and personality and all other things Dolores Umbridge, as portrayed in this summer's fifth movie). I think I might even have encounters with the Dark Lord on occasion. And sometimes I don't know this until I feel the little deaths they've left behind.

But I also know Dumbledores, and Hagrids and Lupins, who love me and seek to help, and whom I love; and I have friends the likes of Hermione and Ron, Luna and house-elves even. Somehow, I am reminded I don't have to face things alone. This is different than being free to abandon the situation altogether. But also, not alone.

I think it could be egotistical to think of myself as Potter, but then, probably every child puts him or herself in Potter's shoes, or at least those children who must face trials in life and survive; those who are not sheltered from most things and are perhaps more vulnerable, but also have a few gifts to recognize and use to help themselves. I need to think of my gifts less as a curse or a source of personal pain, and more as gifts, and to practice them in order to be better and do better. I don't know. There are so many ways to go wrong when trying to use one's gifts well, to function in society, to know the good and work for it.

I hope I can work for the good, and remain good. I hope I will keep the students together, not to dissolve into factions and stir up enmity with each other, because there are so many ways that could happen. I hope not to be alone.