Talking About "Them" / Ignoring "Them" at the Same Time

She was a brunette, with straight, brushed hair and average clothing.  From behind, she looked a bit like a college professor or a graduate student.  I never saw her face or her expressions, and I can only imagine my own facial expression, full of deep shock, distain, frustration.  If this woman had been a professor, a student, or any average working professional, her concerns would have been heard.  Her indignation would have been recognized.  Her story would have been deemed worthy of hearing.  But this woman was homeless.  And so two men, and an entire auditorium, could render her story a fabrication.  An entire university could make her disappear.

Last Thursday, I attended an event on campus called "Solutions to Homelessness."  Being new to town, I was eager to learn about the homeless in San Diego.  And learn I did - over 9000 counted homeless, including about 3000 school-aged children, live in my city.  There are literally hundreds of agencies, non-profit and government-run, to meet the needs of these men, women, and children.  I am grateful for each one of them.  Truly, I am.  They are doing the work of God.

Then why was I immediately unsettled by the panel of service-providers before me?  Nine men and women dressed in suits, speaking of the clients whom they serve.  Nine voices, none of whom had ever been homeless.  Nine voices that spoke of the collective poor without once sharing a specific story or face of poverty.  Somehow, at such an event, the only faces of homelessness were an artist's photographs to preface the panel.  The artist pointed out that, if the stigma on homelessness wasn't so severe, perhaps some homeless individuals would have joined in the conversation.  My cynical side immediately thought: "If there wasn't such a stigma, maybe we would have thought to invite them in the first place."  Amongst the business suits and talk about "clients," somehow the homeless didn't seem to fit at the expansive table.

So, back to this woman - sitting near the front, with a loud, clear voice and a story to tell.  After the panelists had done a sufficient job of complimenting themselves and each other on the work they do, she raised her fist in the air during the time for Q & A.  "I have been homeless since October," she said.  "I joined with the Occupy movement for months, where I was included and well-fed until the police forced us to leave."  She went on to explain more of her plight, culminating in a horrific morning of being woken up by the police, along with the dozens of people around her, at 5 a.m.  She was sleeping near the train tracks with no other place to go (San Diego has less than half of the shelter beds it would need to house all their homeless population).  She was mistreated and belittled, told to move on, and given a citation which she can't afford to pay.  "So I want to ask each one of you here," she concluded her plea, "what you are going to do about the treatment of the homeless by the police here in San Diego."  A just question, followed by (thank God!) a smattering of applause.  Having seen and heard of the criminalization of the homeless in Nashville, I felt my soul sit right next to this woman's.  Christ stands with her, so I do too.

A middle-aged male panelist immediately responded with barely concealed anger and paternalism.  "Respectfully, I complete disagree with you."  Um, disagree with what, exactly?  With her personal testimony?  With her pain?  With the fact that she deserves respect?  He went on to lecture her, asking her to imagine this department that is short on funds and people, just doing the best they can.  "You should ride around with a police officer one night, just to see how hard their job is.  Besides, we can't judge an entire department on one bad apple."

There was a one-second pause in which every other panelist averted their eyes from the woman sitting not 10 feet in front of them, and then the moderator moved on to a final, unrelated question, referencing our limited time for this event.  USD students sat and watched the whole thing - students who are supposed to be formed and shaped into compassionate servants and global citizens.        

Maybe the panelist is right - maybe the San Diego Police Department is a leader in our nation of the just treatment of the homeless.  To me, their website indicates otherwise, telling me not to give the homeless food (that's not exactly what Christ tells me) or permission to "loiter on my property."  That isn't really the issue, though, is it?

The conversation, and the panel, that took place last Thursday is about authenticity (or perhaps hypocrisy).  Do we listen to the poor, or do we talk about "them" without including them in the conversation?  Do we provide charity to the homeless, while denying them justice?  Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.  

A Disciple of Joy

A few weeks back, Rick Jones of Catholic Relief Services spoke to a group of students and myself who had traveled to El Salvador.  So much of what he shared has stuck with me, especially his insistence upon the need for comprehensive immigration reform.  Yet even more striking was his answer to the question: what sustains you?  After over 20 years living and working amidst poverty and violence in El Salvador, how do you go on?  He mentioned 4 seemingly simple things, important things that apply to almost all of us who work for peace, justice, or the common good.

1. Community - remind ourselves that we are not in this alone.  Make time for intentional, prayerful community that reflects on the Gospel together.
2. Prayer - ask God each day "What can I do today to keep from growing cynical?"
3. A sense of humor
4. The discipline of seeking and finding JOY

This last point was especially captivating to me. What does it mean to call joy a discipline?  I have long been fixated (ever since a great homily from Fr. Joe Wagner at Xavier University) on the difference between happiness and joy.  Happiness is fleeting, made by humans, and dependent on circumstances.  Happiness is good, but it is not enough to sustain us in the difficult work we are called to do.  For that, we need joy.  Joy is lasting, and of God.  Yet maybe Rick is right - it's not just a grace from God but also a spiritual discipline.  Like prayer, it both wells up from the Holy Spirit within and is cultivated by our own efforts.

After his talk, I had to write about this idea of joy as a discipline - what would it mean to be a disciple of joy in my own life?  So I wrote the following poem, reflecting on my experiences in the village of Guarjila in the mountains of El Salvador.  

To Be a Disciple of Joy
Is as humbling and holy
As the humming tune of Glendy,
Nine years old and already holding
My heart's pulse in her hand.
To be a disciple of joy
Is to slowly learn how to
Hold her pulse right back.
Sometimes a shared avocado helps.
That, or grape soda.
To be a disciple of joy
Is to sweep the dirt floor
Until it shines like new skin,
Or like polished gravestones,
Or coca-cola bottle tops,
Having once believed that dirt will always be dirt.
To be a disciple of joy
Means to accept food from a hungry woman,
Finally learning the shape of the cross.
Who knew Christ is a woman?
To be a disciple of joy
Means to flip the coin of suffering
And not be shocked at the ludicrous,
Perfect laughter that awaits us on the other side.

Now I am thousands of miles away from Glendy, and Lucinda, and that dirt floor.  So what does the discipline of joy means for me here in San Diego?  What does it mean for me today?  God only knows...

The Bean Jar

In the household of my childhood, Lent was actualized through a little thing we liked to call "the bean jar." This simple jar was slowly but surely filled with dried beans over the course of 40 days, with each bean representing the good deeds proudly performed by my siblings or me.  I was an extremely pious, self-righteous child (how do we learn to outgrow our childish ways?), so I naturally celebrated the "ping" of each bean bouncing off the bottom of the jar.  I was good. I was holy.  Somehow, from hand to jar, the bean lost the meaning of grace.

In recent years, Lent meant giving up something - usually something I love.  Sweets were replaced with spoonfuls of peanut butter.  Meat became tofu.  And for the self-proclaimed queen of happy hour, the substitution of Shirley Temples for Blue Moon was particularly painful.  Still, even the good deed of designated driving for six straight weeks was little more than a constant "ping" in the metaphorical bean jar - yes, a good deed appreciated by my, um, celebratory friends.  But nothing much more.

Every year I begin Lent excited, ready.  And 40 days later, I end it with vague disappointment.  It reminds me of New Year's Eve, with a list in my hand of all the ways to transform my life.  But that's just the problem, isn't it?  We think that Lent is about us, about what we can do.  Ping.  We think that Lent is a time when we need to turn away from sin and turn to God.  Ping, ping.  We think that Lent means more to do, things to change, and bad habits to leave behind - ping, ping, ping.

Just as I am about ready to shatter the bean jar once and for all, I can't help but remember one thing this childhood symbol has absolutely right: Lent is about others.  It's about learning to focus not on ourselves but on those around us.  And it's (shocker) about God.  So, if that's the case, how can I put down the to-do list and pick up love?  How can this Lent, for the first time in my small life, be about me getting out of the way and letting grace move freely in my very veins?

I'm taking my cue from a fabulous student at USD who is leading the "Give Up Apathy" campaign this Lent.  At least at my self-righteous worst, giving up chocolate or beer is about me.  It's about watching the beans pile up right alongside my ego.  But giving up apathy?  And even more importantly, putting on compassion?  That just might be worth trying on for size.  That kind of fast might actually give grace a chance.  To put on compassion sounds like something that all the to-do lists in the world can't accomplish on their own.  So, at least for this year, I'm putting the do and the don't on the shelf...right next to that dusty old jar full of wrinkled beans.          

First-World Problems and Pleasures

Writing a blog can, apparently, make me almost painfully self-aware, conscious of myself thinking of people thinking of me.  How will people perceive me?  (Albeit "people" indicates a group of about 4 right now, mostly blood relatives).   Have I already come across as too serious, too opinionated, too proud?  How much should I use this blog to process the real me, the one currently wearing mismatched pajamas, eating cheese cake, and feeling vaguely lonely (while listening to the constant chatter of college students outside my door because, yes, I live in a freshmen dorm)?  Existential angst, we might call it.  Ah, first-world problems.

So before I explore more about compassion, immigration, and spiritual pilgrimage (stay tuned - later this week), I think it's time to get off my social justice high-horse and share some of the beautiful, simple, silly, and honest things in life that I love.  Normally, I spend about 1% of my week thinking about compassionate justice, and 99% thinking about...

The Avett Brothers, who I am determined to make just as popular on the West Coast as on the East for the simple and selfish reason that I insist on seeing them in concert annually.  Perhaps if I convince enough of my California friends to listen to them, they will come to San Diego and once again make me fall heartbreakingly in love with them.  I deny the rumor that they are married men.

Or this silly little video that, at least to true Harry fans, never gets old.  Am I right, or am I right?

Or the latest Glee episode, about Christianity and homosexuality - the blend of pop culture and faith is so fascinating to me.  As is any musical.  Period.

Or a lovely book titled The Elegance of the Hedgehog (best name ever), in which author Muriel Barbery writes: "Those who feel inspired, as I do, by the greatness of small things will pursue them to the very heart of the inessential where, cloaked in everyday attire, this greatness will emerge from within a certain ordering of ordinary things and from the certainty that all is as it should be, the conviction that it is fine this way."  It reminds me of Julian of Norwich.  Or when Mother Teresa talks about doing small things with great love.

And, if you are in your 20s or 30s, who can deny the glorious hilarity that is New Girl?  I'm not sure if it's good or bad that I identify with Jess, the main character, because I unnecessarily make situations awkward, "rock a lot of polka dots," and find myself singing accidentally.  The other day at work, a student started humming along with me for a good minute before I noticed that I had been awkwardly and loudly humming some pretty sweet elevator music.  Awesome.

And finally, I'm sure everyone and their sister has already heard of Grooveshark, used it, and moved on to something bigger and better, but these past few weeks have been auditory overload of free music - checking out new bands like The Civil Wars (everyone awesome lives in Nashville), and mixing myself a playlist of "Independant Woman," "I'm Every Woman," and "Single Ladies" just in time for Valentine's Day.

So that's me 99% of the time (or the 99% of my non-working hours).  And in an effort to avoid existentialism, I'm not going to analyze, moralize, demonize, or idolize my love of music, TV shows, literature, or youtube.  I will simply share it and, for once in my life, let it be.  It is fine this way.

Word in the World

Yesterday, I had the joy and humbling privilege of preaching at USD's weekly Mass for Peace, a time for the community to come together and pray for peace in our hearts, in our community, and in our world.  My boss had asked me to share about El Salvador, where I spent 11 days in January.  I was also to respond to that day's Gospel reading.  Below is the Gospel, and below that are the words that I shared.  (For the lovely recipients of my Post-Salvador e-mail, parts may sound oh so familiar...)

When Jesus and his disciples arrived at Bethsaida,
people brought to him a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him.
He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village.
Putting spittle on his eyes he laid his hands on the man and asked,
"Do you see anything?"
Looking up the man replied, "I see people looking like trees and walking."
Then he laid hands on the man's eyes a second time and he saw clearly;
his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly.
Then he sent him home and said, "Do not even go into the village."

Mark 8:22-26

   

When I was in seventh grade, I got glasses.  They were round and gold, not to mention huge, and when added to my braces and painful shyness, I was just about the dorkiest middle-schooler of all time.  I will never forget the moment I first put those glasses on.  As I waited there for my new sight, I sat staring out the window at a brilliantly green tree planted on a huge lawn.  Yet the whole scene was fuzzy like a bad impressionist painting.  And then the moment of putting them on and looking out upon that same world. That moment was like a miracle, or grace.  To this day, I remember the shape and texture of the individual leaves, the way the wind ruffled each one gently.  I remember the individual blades of grass that just moments before had looked like worn out astro-turf.  And I remember saying to myself – “So this is the world, the world as it really is.  It is so beautiful!”  Before that day, I never even knew what I was missing.

Whether by choice or circumstance, we often don’t see as God sees.  We often don’t see what I believe God wants us to see – that is, we don’t see the poor.  We here at USD usually don’t see dirt floors, homeless encampments, or bodies wrecked by AIDS.  And the sad fact is that we hardly even notice what we’re not seeing.  Like many of you, I live on campus – on this hill that literally places us above others.  Up here, it’s easy to resist seeing people that the world teaches us are ugly, useless, or disposable.  And so the poor are made invisible – or at least made to feel that way.  And meanwhile, those of us with privilege overlook the very face of Christ. 

It’s an interesting thing, isn’t it – our resistance to gaining new sight.  It’s not unlike the unusual circumstance of tonight’s miracle story.  We’re more familiar with the story of another blind man who calls out to Jesus with persistence, wanting to be healed.  But that’s not this story.  From what we heard tonight, who knows if this man even wants to be cured, at least at first.  A whole community of people bring, maybe even drag him to Jesus, and I can’t help but speculate that the man wouldn’t have gone on his own.  Maybe he, like us, was content with the status quo, with blindness, with what he already knew.  Sure, he was missing out on a lot – but at least he knew what to expect each day.  Without the help of his community, he might have settled for superficial happiness rather than risk everything he knew in seeing with the eyes of God.  He reminds me of me, and of many of us.  We live insulated lives - we rarely touch the deepest or rawest parts.  We would rather watch supposed “Reality TV,” complete with Snookie and The Situation, than enter into the lives of the poor, and their reality of deep suffering, and even deeper joy.  And, like the blind man, sometimes it takes the invitation, and the example, of a whole community to help us begin to see. 

But a supportive community is not enough.  We hear in the Gospel that Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him away from his village, from his comfort zone, from his fear of change, from the status quo.  Only there could he fully see.  In my own life, one important place that is far from my own village is Guarjila, a small, poor town in El Salvador.  And it goes without saying that Guarjila is also way out of my comfort zone.  Each morning, while staying there, I woke not to my alarm clock but to the rooster crowing around 5 am.  By 6:00, I would admit defeat and head to the outhouse.  Then I’d help with morning chores around the house, sweeping fallen leaves off the dirt floor or carrying gallons of water from the outdoor basin in the backyard to the kitchen, which was without running water.  Somehow, reality here seemed more real.  It was the reality of God’s holy children, suffering from war, hunger, and poverty.  In the midst of that reality, how could I not start to see it, and see myself as part of it?

With patient grace, God allows the suffering of the world to enter our lives bit by bit.  Maybe that’s why Jesus doesn’t immediately cure the blind man on the first go.  To go from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, in only an instant – well, that’s enough to freak anyone out.  So, when community gives us the courage to go beyond our own village, to step beyond the status quo, then our hearts are gradually cracked first here, then there, if we let them be, by injustice, poverty, and pain.  And then, only then, can pure joy flood in.

Right now, my heart has a thousand different cracks – and the suffering of God’s people is streaming in.  Beginning to see with the eyes of God reveals to us that the suffering of the poor is the way of the cross in today’s world – because Christ was not only crucified 2000 years ago.  He is crucified today in the broken lives of our brothers and sisters.  If we, God’s people, are the Body of Christ, then His body is too often abused, starving, and forgotten.  Now, when I picture the face of the suffering Christ, I see Lucinda, my host mom back in ES.  I guess I should have warned you that seeing with God’s eyes can make you see some unusual things.  I see Lucinda who served me more food for breakfast that I could begin to finish while telling me that she wasn’t hungry because she has grown accustomed to only 2 meals a day.  I see Lucinda who suffers from headaches and post-traumatic stress disorder after the physical and psychological violence of 12 years of bloody civil war.  I see Lucinda who walks to the local mill every morning to make handmade tortillas for her elderly parents, daughter and son-in-law, 3 grandchildren, niece, great-niece, and youngest son.  Just spending time with Lucinda was a sort of painful grace.  With every day I spent with her, my eyes opened a bit wider – and there is no going back.

Yet, like a two-sided coin, suffering is paradoxically never far from joy – and Lucinda, as a face of Christ, teaches me that the crucifixion is inseparable from resurrection. It is hard to believe that this impoverished, suffering woman is the same one who guided me across the Sumpul river while I slipped and fell, as we spent our last day swimming. And this is the woman whose grandchildren buried her up to her head in sand while she laughed. And this is the woman who bought me a coke, taught me how to fry plantains, held my hand, and apparently cussed like a sailor (my Spanish wasn't good enough to catch it). Romero says that "human beings are God's other self." I guess this means that God is still persecuted today in El Salvador, and in San Diego, and around the world, even as God is the hope of children dancing, women sewing, and men on the migrant trail north. 

While in El Salvador, a wise woman named Sr. Peggy told us, “Once you know, you can’t not know.”  Once the blind man is cured, his eyes and heart are open to the world’s suffering and deep joy.  Maybe this is the meaning of Jesus’ cryptic parting words to him, and to us – “do not even go into the village.”  The truth is that we can never go back – at least not to the same place that we left.  To let God, and God’s poor people, crack our hearts and open our eyes means that we not only know but that we have no choice but to care.  Opened eyes means that we see the present-day crucifixion of God’s beloved people, that we see and that we ask God – how can we take people down from their crosses?  How are we complicit in nailing people up there in the first place? 

So God, we pray for the painful and joyful presence of the poor in our lives. Keep the poor before us always so that our eyes may stay wide open and our hearts may stay forever cracked. With our opened eyes, help us to be doers of your word in the world, so that one day, and one day soon, we might look upon God’s vivid reign here on earth and joyfully proclaim, “So this is the world, the world as it really is.  It is so beautiful!”       

Falling in Love

For Valentine's Day - 


Nothing is more practical than finding God, 
that is, than falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, 
will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.


- Fr. Pedro Arrupe

A backwards look at gluttony

Spending time at Rachel's Women's Center in downtown San Diego is necessary in my usually lazy and cushy life.  If compassion means to be with suffering, then anyone seeking to be compassionate should spend time with the homeless.  With the homeless, suffering seems to be the fabric of being.  It is amazing to see the intense suffering that happens in the lives of broken, battered women.  This week, I met a woman who was praying that the huge welt on her head, a result of domestic abuse, would never go away.  She patted it as she said: "I wish it would stay there always so I could see it and be reminded not to go back - back to him like I've done so many times before."  Why was she amazed when I called her courageous?

The strange truth of this conversation was that it happened in the midst of trial-sized shampoo, body lotion, and toothpaste.  I was sitting behind a counter, passing these necessities out like rations at a refugee camp.  "You can take up to three shampoos," I would say, and when a woman would thank me, I was half horrified to hear my own voice say "you're welcome."  As if I am the dispenser of basic human rights.  As if I have anything to give.  If we let it, charity messes with our heads.   As I think it should.  I am grateful when I am troubled and confused by my role as the Santa Claus of hygiene products - I am humiliated when I simply pat myself on the back (as I so often do) and go on with my day.  After two hours at the Center, I usually treat myself to a smoothie or, as was the case yesterday, a cafe au lait with sugar-free vanilla - a reward for being such a saint!

Harder than seeing that woman's welt, harder than rationing razors, is the donation room.  Here, goodwill and good intentions are piled in a corner for me to sort through, fold neatly, or throw out.  Calvin Klein mingles with White Stag, and paper and plastic bags burst open from the weight.  I am not bothered by the monotony or the simple-minded task before me.  No, my type-a personality loves to sort by size, style, and quality.  However, I find it hard to be there, and the difficulty of the donation room is two-fold.  Last week, I spent the first hour frustrated by rips, holes, sweat stains, and dribbled spaghetti sauce.  Really?  Do we really think the homeless won't notice that this swishy track suit is from 1984?  It seems to me that the donation room can quickly deteriorate into a garbage dump for those we often treat like garbage.  That week, I had brought my own bag of clothes to donate, and my green sweater with the visible stains was painful for me to see.

When I finally opened a bag with no less than ten pairs of pants, all from designer labels, I breathed an initial sigh of relief.  Here is someone who knows that homeless women want to look good, someone who is willing to give the best.  Yet as I pulled out Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, and J. Crew, I suddenly felt even worse than the moment I first saw that track suit from 1984.  As I beheld so much wealth in one simple black trash bag, I couldn't help but visualize the closet from which it all had come.  This closet has designer label pants from 2012, never 2011.  Truly it was a moment of despair when I realized that charity can serve as justification, or atonement, for excessive consumption.  These garbage bags of gluttony, piled 3 or 4 deep, seemed like penance for the subconscious guilt of living out the American dream.

Writing my way towards God's reign

I have never been one for blogs.  I have never been one for technology, for that matter.  I have a persistent distrust of computers, cell phones, and especially any thing that begins with I-.  They are barriers, opaque windows behind which to hide.  Technology keeps us from the real world - a world in need.  Most days, I would do well to get off Facebook, put on a compassionate heart, and give away something I don't really need.  Most days.  


But I also know myself.  In my own life, writing has been a painful and beautiful process of self-discovery.  On my good days, words seem to rise from within me like steam off the Tennessee pavement after a thunderstorm.  And with each word that I can bottle, at least briefly, before sending it out into the world, or sending it up to God, I come to know myself a little better.  "So that's what I really care about," I find myself saying.  Not until I read the pages of my journal back to myself do I know my own calling.  Not until I read my own handwriting can I see the handwriting of God at work in my small life.  God's words echo in my head, calling me to become the woman I was created to be.  Yes, deep down, God dwells within us, itching to be believed. 


And, as an avid reader, I know the bridge that words create between us.  And the bridge that words create to the Kingdom of God.  Stories told and re-told become the reality for which we so desperately long.  Only if we can begin to imagine stories of a world without poverty, and without violence; only if we can share these stories, and share them again; only if we can incarnate these stories in our wild and precious lives - yes, only then will God's reign break through in whispers and shouts of wonder.  


So I write.  I write because I have the privilege of literacy.  I write because I have the privilege of technology.  I write because I have a story or two that I've promised to tell.  And I can only pray for the grace of storytelling.  I can only pray for these words, and the I-Book (yes, that starts with an I-) that will help me along the way.