The #MeToo movement was used today as a tool to feed
into the media's never-ending and ever-failing quest to prove Hillary Clinton an
enabler and protector of abusers. And so today there are hundreds of stories
floating titled things such as - - "Who is Burns Strider?" and
"Five Things You Need To Know About Burns Strider." Well, I know Burns
Strider have ten things for you to know about him. To know Burns is to know a
true friend.
Canoe in the Rapids, by Winslow Homer
1.) Loyal and available to his friends, Burns Strider is a guy who will stay on
the phone with a childhood friend until 4:00 am when she is suffering from a
life crisis and needs support.
2.) Burns is the friend who will invite you
for coffee at his office and tell you stories about growing up in Grenada, Mississippi.
You’ll enjoy the stories. They are colorful and vibrant and you'll walk away not
exactly sure what any of those stories had to do with anything. You will go to
sleep. You will wake up in the morning with your eyes as big as the planets and
understand that the point was to live authentically. To tell the truth. To tell
your own truth. To live your own truth. To be proud of your
truth, warts and all. And you will carry this message with you wherever you go.
And you will think of the words “lemony yellow aura,” forever, with great meaning.
3.) He is the guy who will meet you for dinner on a Tuesday night between
dropping his kids off at sports practice and picking them up because you had a
panic attack at work and are afraid of the future and are forgetting to
breathe.
4.) Burns does not let his friends off the hook. He tells us he loves us and
worries about us and that he better get a call back and when he knows
everything is not ok we are not allowed to say that everything is ok.
5.) Burns is a guy who might not tell you
that a piece of kale is stuck in your teeth during a lunch because he knows
there is a wall of mirrors that the two of you will pass as you exit and you
will see it and try to remove it with a fingernail. When you do this, he might
encourage you to just leave it. After all, it is important to be authentic.
6.) When confused, a friend can text Burns
at 10:30 pm on a Saturday night and ask, “Why is my boyfriend hiding copious
amounts of Kings Hawaiian bread rolls up high in the cupboards of our kitchen?”
Promptly, he will respond: “Because they make the best sandwiches. They really
do.”
7.) Burns loves his children (even more
than he loves Mississippi State Bulldogs sports). His sons are his life.
He is devoted to documenting nearly everything they do around town in DC, on
road trips, and on charmed adventures. He invites the rest of us to witness the
love and the celebrations of their life together.
8.) The relationship Burns has with the
Clintons is a sacred one. He will tell funny stories about diet cheating on the
campaign trail with former President Bill Clinton, or when Secretary Hillary
Clinton scolded him about procrastinating on a health concern. He will let you
know how and what they are doing, but that’s it. He is like that with all of his
friends. He protects us all from whatever we need protection.
9.) He wears a Make Mercy Great Again hat.
#MMGA
10.) His southern accent allows you to enjoy it when he is
making fun of you. I was once complaining about paying for my storage unit back
in Ohio - and within the context of my very nomadic life - Burns suggested that I make one of those interactive maps with blinking lights to
show all the cities where my possessions reside and he said, "And over
here, in Ohio, this is where I keep my books and grandparents’ furniture, but
if you want to hear about the emotional
things I have stored here, you will have to pay extra.”
Lastly, Mary Oliver, a poet both Burns and Secretary Clinton enjoy
wrote, “I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—that the light is everything—that it is more than the
sumof each flawed blossom rising and
falling. And I do.”
The Last Sermon (March 1980) Archbishop Oscar Romero
Let no one be offended because we use the divine words read at our mass to shed light on the social, political and economic situation of our people. Not to do so would be unchristian. Christ desires to unite himself with humanity, so that the light he brings from God might become life for nations and individuals. I know many are shocked by this preaching and want to accuse us of forsaking the gospel for politics. But I reject this accusation. I am trying to bring to life the message of the Second Vatican Council and the meetings at Medellin and Puebla. The documents from these meetings should not just be studied theoretically.
They should be brought to life and translated into the real struggle to preach the gospel as it should be for our people. Each week I go about the country listening to the cries of the people, their pain from so much crime, and the ignominy of so much violence. Each week I ask the Lord to give me the right words to console, to denounce, to call for repentance. And even though I may be a voice crying in the desert, I know that the church is making the effort to fulfill its mission....
Every country lives its own "exodus"; today El Salvador is living its own exodus. Today we are passing to our liberation through a desert strewn with bodies and where anguish and pain are devastating us. Many suffer the temptation of those who walked with Moses and wanted to turn back and did not work together. It is the same old story. God, however, wants to save the people by making a new history....
History will not fail; God sustains it. That is why I say that insofar as historical projects attempt to reflect the eternal plan of God, to that extent they reflect the kingdom of God. This attempt is the work of the church. Because of this, the church, the people of God in history, is not attached to any one social system, to any political organization, to any party. The church does not identify herself with any of those forces because she is the eternal pilgrim of history and is indicating at every historical moment what reflects the kingdom of God and what does not reflect the kingdom of God. She is the servant of the Kingdom of God.
The great task of Christians must be to absorb the spirit of God's kingdom and, with souls filled with the kingdom of God, to work on the projects of history. It's fine to be organized in popular groups; it's all right to form political parties; it's all right to take part in the government. It's fine as long as you are a christian who carries the reflection of the kingdom of God and tries to establish it where you are working, and as long as you are not being used to further worldly ambitions. This is the great duty of the people of today. My dear Christians, I have always told you, and I will repeat, that the true liberators of our people must come from us Christians, from the people of God. Any historical plan that's not based on what we spoke of in the first point-the dignity of the human being, the love of God, the kingdom of Christ among people-will be a fleeting project. Your project, however, will grow in stability the more it reflects the eternal design of God. It will be a solution of the common good of the people every time, if it meets the needs of the people.... Now I invite you to look at things through the eyes of the church, which is trying to be the kingdom of God on earth and so often must illuminate the realities of our national situation.
We have lived through a tremendously tragic week. I could not give you the facts before, but a week ago last Saturday, on 15 March, one of the largest and most distressing military operations was carried out in the countryside. The villages affected were La Laguna, Plan de Ocotes and El Rosario. The operation brought tragedy: a lot of ranches were burned, there was looting, and-inevitably-people were killed. In La Laguna, the attackers killed a married couple, Ernesto Navas and Audelia Mejia de Navas, their little children, Martin and Hilda, thirteen and seven years old, and eleven more peasants.
Other deaths have been reported, but we do not know the names of the dead. In Plan de Ocotes, two children and four peasants were killed, including two women. In El Rosario, three more peasants were killed. That was last Saturday.
Last Sunday, the following were assassinated in Arcatao by four members of ORDEN: peasants Marcelino Serrano, Vincente Ayala, twenty-four years old, and his son, Freddy. That same day, Fernando Hernandez Navarro, a peasant, was assassinated in Galera de Jutiapa, when he fled from the military.
Last Monday, 17 March, was a tremendously violent day. Bombs exploded in the capital as well as in the interior of the country. The damage was very substantial at the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture. The campus of the national university was under armed siege from dawn until 7 P.M. Throughout the day, constant bursts of machine-gun fire were heard in the university area. The archbishop's office intervened to protect people who found themselves caught inside.
On the Hacienda Colima, eighteen persons died, at least fifteen of whom were peasants. The administrator and the grocer of the ranch also died. The armed forces confirmed that there was a confrontation. A film of the events appeared on TV, and many analyzed interesting aspects of the situation.
At least fifty people died in serious incidents that day: in the capital, seven persons died in events at the Colonia Santa Lucia; on the outskirts of Tecnillantas, five people died; and in the area of the rubbish dump, after the evacuation of the site by the military, were found the bodies of four workers who had been captured in that action.
Sixteen peasants died in the village of Montepeque, thirty-eight kilometers along the road to Suchitoto. That same day, two students at the University of Central America were captured in Tecnillantas: Mario Nelson and Miguel Alberto Rodriguez Velado, who were brothers. The first one, after four days of illegal detention, was handed over to the courts. Not so his brother, who was wounded and is still held in illegal detention. Legal Aid is intervening on his behalf.
Amnesty International issued a press release in which it described the repression of the peasants, especially in the area of Chalatenango. The week's events confirm this report in spite of the fact the government denies it. As I entered the church, I was given a cable that says, "Amnesty International confirmed today [that was yesterday] that in El Salvador human rights are violated to extremes that have not been seen in other countries." That is what Patricio Fuentes (spokesman for the urgent action section for Central America in Swedish Amnesty International) said at a press conference in Managua, Nicaragua.
Fuentes confirmed that, during two weeks of investigations he carried out in El Salvador, he was able to establish that there had been eighty-three political assassinations between 10 and 14 March. He pointed out that Amnesty International recently condemned the government of El Salvador, alleging that it was responsible for six hundred political assassinations. The Salvadorean government defended itself against the charges, arguing that Amnesty International based its condemnation on unproved assumptions.
Fuentes said that Amnesty had established that in El Salvador human rights are violated to a worse degree than the repression in Chile after the coupe d'etat. The Salvadorean government also said that the six hundred dead were the result of armed confrontations between army troops and guerrillas. Fuentes said that during his stay u l El Salvador, he could see that the victims had been tortured before their deaths and mutilated afterward.
The spokesman of Amnesty International said that the victims' bodies characteristically appeared with the thumbs tied behind their backs. Corrosive liquids had been applied to the corpses to prevent identification of the victims by their relatives and to prevent international condemnation, the spokesman added. Nevertheless, the bodies were exhumed and the dead have been identified. Fuentes said that the repression carried out by the Salvadorean army was aimed at breaking the popular organizations through the assassination of their leaders in both town and country.
According to the spokesman of Amnesty International, at least three thousand five hundred peasants have fled from their homes to the capital to escape persecution. "We have complete lists in London and Sweden of young children and women who have been assassinated for being organized," Fuentes stated....
I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, "Thou shalt not kill." No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.
The church preaches your liberation just as we have studied it in just as we have studied it in the holy Bible today. It is a liberation that has, above all else, respect for the dignity of the person, hope for humanity's common good, and the transcendence that looks before all to God and only from God derives its hope and its strength.
But emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. and being found in human form. - Philippians 2:7
During Lent, for Christian sub-communities - - specifically converts (pre-baptismal catechumens), new christians (neophytes), and penitent apostates (atoning sinners)- - and the community as a whole there exists a season of abstinence, discipline, self-restraint, and contemplation. Therein lays flesh filled optimism, turning toward the resurrection of Christ. Lent, therefore, provides the church with a unique opportunity to be active contrarians to the norms and ways of our sick, scarce culture; it is a time to live over and against the selfish and unequal mainstream values of modernity.
One way in which this can be activated is through fasting, as recommended by Paul in Acts 14:23. Fasting activates a bodily attempt to “die” of self in order to live for Christ. This self-denial resides in union with Christ’s sacrifice not only of his life, or in his resistance of temptation in the desert, but in his humiliating experience as a smelling, pained, tortured body, hanging on the cross.
St. Leo the Great said that Lent was a time to prepare for salvation. Those awaiting baptism, the church-going, and those returning to the church can engage in a communal fast as preparation for salvation, and a “rebaptism” in Easter. Lent presents spiritual struggles, and fasting is a tool to assist in working through those struggles. It is also an act of social justice. When I consume less, I leave more for others to consume. When I take in less food and water, there are gleanings for the needy as commanded by scripture.
In the same vain that hunger strikes are a means of non-violent resistance to oppressive conditions, fasting speaks truth to power. In pre-Christian Ireland, hunger strikes were used to publicly bring attention to injustice. During the early 20th century, hunger strikes were used by Gandhi in India against the British. Suffragists, Caesar Chavez, and Guantanamo detainees have fasted in opposition to inequality in gender, labor, and justice, denying ones body of bread, speaks over and against the system and the worldly emptiness that pervade society, hoping for a new bread of life in Christ.
The story of Elijah reveals the power fasting has in connecting with God. Elijah goes into the desert to hide after great violence. He asks God to end his life, takes nothing in, and then gives his life over to God entirely. Soon food is delivered, and not by the Sala Thai delivery guy: BUT BY AN ANGEL! Then comes revelation and courage. Elijah may return to Israel. Fasting may help us all return to Israel. Caution however, after Moses fasted, he received the Ten Commandments. With self-denial comes wisdom, followed by responsibility in a world of irreversibility.
A couple of weeks ago, I called my friend Uzma for the first time in many months. While Uzma is someone I greatly admire and feel quite close to we do not speak frequently. She and I were catching up about all the things women talk about in these sorts of conversations. (And she always makes time for me when I call.) Uzma is going to be a Mom, so we talked about that. Having finished her Masters in Public Health at Johns Hopkins, she has a new job in North Carolina, so we also discussed that. During this conversation, I realized she was at the same time running errands for her husband, Nadim. First she went to the drug store to get him a prescription for heartburn. Then she went through the Arby’s drive-thru. Then to another place to retrieve a specific type of freedom fries. Nadim, a heart surgeon, was at home watching the Redskins with a friend.
Realizing it was about 7 pm on the east coast I asked Uzma, “Are ya’all breaking fast now or something?”
“Yes! And I am running all over the place to get Nadim what he wants!”
“Happy Ramadan, I guess?”
“Ha ha ha- thanks,” she said.
Today, I watched an A&E special on Queen Noor (Lisa Hallaby) of Jordan. And I remembered Uzma driving through the drive-thrus. And I also recalled Sarah from Austin in Bangladesh telling me of her arranged marriage and the early struggles with it as the commitment she and her husband made grew stronger - endured the test of time and ultimately celebrated an irreplaceable bond.
I envy these women.
In a day and age where my favorite Presidential candidate Barack Obama marches around asserting that he is “not a Muslim” I sometimes wish there was place for me in the Muslim culture. Islam means “surrender,” and at risk of sounding pathetic, I must say, as a single woman, I would love nothing more than to give, surrender, and love with all of my being, in choice and devotion like my Muslim friends do in their marriages.
I missed my friend Iram’s wedding in August, but she was gorgeous and I am sharing a photo.
Before watching Obama’s speech on TV this afternoon, I was breezing through a book called The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, by Philip Jenkins.In addition to a thorough account of ideas on Christian universality in the African church and global south, Jenkins exposes the notion of Christianity as westerndom for the myth that it is, - at first, by discussing how a Palestinian centered world was recartographied - if you will – into a Roman centered world. Then, Jenkins reminds readers that the holiest of practices of Christianity were established in modern-day Tunsia and practiced three hundred years before Christianity was legalized in Europe; and of course, according to Acts, it was an Ethiopian who first converted to Christianity. Still today in Ethiopia where a Solomonic tradition of thousands of years stands against the oppression of forms of imperialism, a tradition of mysticism and hope prevails in the face of the crushing forces of death.
We are all Palestinian. We are all African.
So today, an American with an African father went to Europe and asked for a help in healing the strife of both the highlighted and forgotten parts of the world.He said, “Now the world will watch and remember what we do here - what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time? Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words "never again" in Darfur? Will we acknowledge that there is no more powerful example than the one each of our nations projects to the world? Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law? Will we welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don't look like us or worship like we do, and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people? People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time.”
We are all Berliners.
Obama called for conversation and trust, peace and cooperation.“The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow,” he said, after highlighting the World War II airlifts of food to Germany. I couldn’t help but think of what a miraculous thing it has been for me to watch and listen to upper-middle class Americans on mission trips in Haiti. Something forever changes when they briefly suffer with their Haitian brothers and sisters, witnessing their crushing hunger and sadness. It feels like watching a miracle also, to see a slender, brown-skinned, man represent America, me, and my family extending an open hand across Atlantic ocean after eight years of cowboys offering only the absolutes of silence, torture, and death. I will pray for sustainable miracles, and hope that President Obama remembers he is a Palestinian-African-Berliner.
Paulo Freire’s Method of Conscientization is about developing critical awareness of groups of people in poor communities, and it has been used by community literacy programs, health workers, and educators through out Latin America, India, and Africa.One principle in the Method of Conscientization is that group leaders must not ask questions with built-in answers, and must be prepared for totally unexpected answers and ideas to questions.
If my question as a group leader is “how to we provide care and compassion (a suffering with) with cleanliness,the answers I witness and receive minute by minute from the nurses, doctors, and staff at Vizitasyon continue to surprise me.Somethings are a bit confusing, I will admit, - - like when the grounds keeper seems to have many complaints about the parts of his job which involve, well, grounds keeping.He would prefer to fill protein bags, and hand off his broom. But then there are the nurses who bathed and shaved an incredibly destitute man - - gravely destitute - - who some of us picked up on the way back from the village.His testicles were literally the size of watermelons, and he has probably not washed in many, many months.The doctors determined that his heart is good for surgery.Treating Camile with dignity was an unexpected answer in this place, in this mountainous island in the sea, full of beauty, and death.And then there was Joselle.She is my age.She was our last patient to leave last night. I had a moment to ask about her. She had a spontaneous miscarriage at home.The nurses told me of her sadness.I saw her father walk her out, through the front door, holding her IV.I knew that my father would do the same exact thing for me.
If you were to ask me what the average day as administrator is like, thus far, I suppose I would hand you a list including: awake at 4 am to those who have traveled through the night for the 8 am opening of the klinik; plan community child deworming mobile unit in order to spend allocated money; run the generator so to fill the cistern with water; do the pay roll; hold sick babies in front of proud mothers; struggle with kreyol; tell local priest that he does not in fact run Vizitasyon- with delicacy; hunt down some Baygone for ants in office; discuss the Gift of Water project with Karen; drink finely prepared granadia juice; ask, ‘well what are they doing in Cange about X, Y, or Z?' Watch the sunset; take a bucket shower; think about the people who were sent home with medicines that require taking with food, knowing they have no food, - and day dream about our nutrition and food program available through our (God-willing) imminent PEPFAR grant and subsequent grants. - And last but not least - - let “the grounds keeper” know that he may not in fact hand his broom to children because “timoune pa travey ici! Ou comprand!?”
Below are a few photos.A photo from the back of where I live and work.A photo of the first building.The medical director Dr. JF (as I call him), and my boss Theresa, from the States who introduced me here, and held meetings, etc. And a photo of the quiet once the day is through.
“We already experience resurrection here and now, in the midst of life, when we rise up against death in life, now, against the oppressions and the hurts to which life here is subjected.In love, resurrection is not merely expected; it is already experienced.For love makes us come alive. And love never gives anyone or anything up for lost.It sees a future in which God will restore everything, and put everything to rights, and gather everything into [God’s] kingdom.” – Jurgen Moltman
"You are a Schola Prophetarum, a School of the Prophets." - the pronouncement in 1875 to the faculty and students of the Biblical Department of Vanderbilt University by Holland Nimmons McTyeire (1824-1889) Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church South; first president of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust
This weekend, I graduated from the school of the prophets. (No pressure or anything.) Friends, please see all of my photos from a glorious weekend by clicking below. I particularly enjoy the dinner and party photos toward the end. If you double-click on a photo, you will be able to scroll through them as larger images with captions.
"Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need." - Acts 4:32-35 (NRSV)
During my 20’s the instances when I have thought, ‘what am I doing here?’ Or, ‘I do not belong in this situation,’ have certainly outweighed in number the times I have thought, ‘this is exactly where I am supposed to be.’ At dinner with my new boss and community on Friday night, I had a profound sense of blessed assurance ~ this is my story, this is my song. In June, I am moving to Haiti to serve as a hospital administrator for a beautiful new facility situated between the ocean and the mountains, providing care to the sick. In Haiti, there is one doctor for every 13,000 people, so the need is tremendous. This opportunity is a leap for me personally and professionally. It will also serve as a great challenge in “conversation morum”- the ongoing conversation of mind, heart, and life. The early monastics believed that there are four renunciations one must encounter to begin a new life, and I might remember them in this endeavor: 1) renounce your former way of life; 2) renounce the thoughts and desires of that way of life; 3) grace will invite us to renounce our self-made thoughts of God; 4) we are then allowed to renounce our self-made thoughts of self.
My boss has been one of the “players” in Haiti for the past 30 years, along with Dr. Paul Farmer, and the rest.Her deep commitment to the Haitian people transcends the difficulties of getting things done in Haiti.Her faith boils over not with words, but with deeds, truly believing that she is called to serve with a preferential option for the poor.She has shown me that I too may live a unique and meaningful life in solidarity with the Haitians who have been harmed at the hand of my own country, over, and over, and over again. The dinner on Friday included others who have dedicated their hearts and resources to Haiti.There is a humility among them that was sincere, and they all love and respect my boss.
I heard things like how during the coup in 1991 my boss (in her late 50’s at the time), stared down the Haitian Army with guns pointed at her, while she secretly delivered money to priests for the hungry parishioners.There was something about going to an island to see Aristide while he was held up in a church. And another story about a tight situation driving through a river and two waterfalls. My boss was very quiet during this, only piping up to correct some of the details, “and we had to chop up that cocoanut tree to get it out of the way.” I told my boss that I would like to write her biography. “No," she said, "I have always said that the book should be about the churches and the work that…” I interrupted, “Well, what if you are not writing the book?” There was a roar of support for my idea from the table.
I will move to Haiti by June 15th, for a year or two, before applying to other graduate programs back in the states. But who knows what will happen next!? I will keep my friends posted as more details about my departure are finalized! I expect visitors!
The Our Father prayer has been spiritualized and privatized in modernity.The truth of the matter is that Jesus was speaking directly to the very immediate concerns of the poor and oppressed.The debts are financial.The bread is the tangible food necessary for life. Take a look at the Gospel of Luke - it is an economic project asserting an abyss between poor and rich; proclaiming Jesus' solidarity with the poor (and the judgment of the rich); and the importance of sharing. Jesus makes programmatic announcements and healings in an attempt to reverse the process of dehumanization caused by poverty and power structures. Jesus as the fulfillment of the Judaic law repeats Torah law with the following commands: Reduce debts.Lend without expecting reciprocation.Invite the poor into your hospitality.Provide services and goods to the poor.
There is so much to celebrate about Christianity!It embraces the best of the classical ethicists, the richness of the Hebraic tradition, and a fine balance between the contemplative and the active. And one thing is undeniable - Christianity is first and foremost about a concern for poverty.The poor challenge us at all times, and when we wake up in a world where poverty exists, we fail God and we fail one another.
In my opinion, poverty is the result of a systematic behavior of allegiances toward and participation in certain economic and political ideologies that ultimately provide material wealth to those able to operate with structurally supported self-interest, while oppressing the world's masses who live on less than two dollars a day; poverty comes from putting our will before the will of God. Private property is part of this problem. What would the world look like if property were a public good?After all property has many life-giving functions. Economist Karl Polanyi has noted that land is used for lots of things – like stability, habitation, physical safety, and he said that living without land is like "being born without hands and feet." Private property prohibits inclusive human survivability, and this is directly against God's will for life. According to the market, the private nature of property is seen as "natural," but the harms done by private property are anything but natural according to Christianity.
Pentecostalism, HIV/AIDS, and the burden of South African women is what my friend Katy researches.Today she lectured on a wide range of issues surrounding the devastating HIV/AIDS problem in sub-Saharan Africa in specific relation to the Church’s failure to care enough (although statistically they care more than non-Christians), turn away from traditional strategies, and zap stigma. As a Christian Ethicist, Katy offers a three pronged approach for the moral response to HIV/AIDS: A Posture of worldliness (ending the bifurcation between the spiritual and the physical); Reading and responding to the situation at hand (the emptying of the church-self to serve as opposed to blindly following moral code); Reframing guilt and innocence (i.e. Christ became guilty out of love).Theologically, Katy’s research can certainly inform my own interest in the anthropology of Haiti’s suffering.
Bonhoeffer has been on my brain a lot lately, and one of his quotes was shared in today's lecture: "I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. . . By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities.In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world – watching with Christ in Gethsemane.That, I think, is faith . . . and that is how one becomes a human and a Christian.”
According to Bonhoeffer and divine command theory, God’s yes is bigger than God’s no, and Christians must have full engagement and a posture of worldliness. The numbers say that a third of the world is Christian, and 1.7 million of the 2.5 new HIV/AIDS cases in 2007 are in sub-Saharan Africa. So if Bonhoeffer’s theology were to be adopted by American Christians alone, how long would it take for HIV/AIDS to disappear from Africa, and from the world as a whole?
This is great. Important. Right on. This proves that church life and theology are fantastic ways to confront societal issues such as poverty and race. Linda Thomas teaches at Vandy.
"I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories of survival, and freedom, and hope became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about memories that all people might study and cherish and with which we could start to rebuild." - Barack Obama, today
Today at Starbucks, my friend spoke of how liberation theology became embodied for her at the recent ordination of our colleague Darius. She said, "sometimes liberation theology is just so structured and I just can't feel the person in it." While listening to Obama, today and nearly everyday - a human face is exposed in the black church experience. Black, white, female, male,gay, straight - may we all seek to confront the ethnic imperialism of the white, Protestant, heteronormative experience.
