final season for Bush

toward the illuminative way

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 mortgage crisis

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.

hillary and obama

where sin has increased grace abounds (romans 5:20)

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?

resurrection

Even though the world has failed, the healing capacity of the human experience has no limits. I can never know your pain, but I can tell you about mine. Together, we may live in communion, and change the failures of the world.

Today, in a lecture on the ethics of sex (within the context of the norm of the black church's no-talk policy), my professor discussed “sexual consent” and his own experience as a rape survivor. He read some of his new book that addresses this topic. Needless to say, I was profoundly surprised by his choice to speak so openly about something so painful and rarely discussed. He said that he has had a lot of time and therapy to get to the other side of this, to take power from it, name it, and talk with people about it. After class, I went to his office to thank him for the lecture. I said, “That room is full of rape survivors. You just know it.” We will never be able to measure the impact of Victor’s lecture today. He inspired future church leaders to speak about the sexual problems going on sometimes right in the choir chambers of the church. He also gave permission to all of us, to take back our lives; lives that have been slowly stolen from us at the hands of sexual violence, shame, and silence. There is a life after the silence.

Eight years ago, I was followed into a public restroom in Washington, DC, and my head was slammed against a mirror several times, and I was raped. People nearby could hear my frantic laughter as it was happening. I was left alone with my attacker, and then taken by him to a second location where he continued to rape me. Thank goodness, the only thing that I can remember from the second location was waking up and screaming when my head was being bashed again. The following day was probably the weirdest day of my life. During the weeks of panic attacks, issued blame, and months of anxiety, I worked closely with a therapist, as I tried to reclaim my life, and get better. My parents and friends helped me too. It was an imperfect journey, ignited by the social sin of rape, and guided by the human instinct for survival. By being honest and committing to do this work, ultimately my life was saved. Obviously this is the very abbreviated version of what happened to me, and of how it profoundly affected my life and my personhood. But at the end of the day, the details are not the story.

There is one book that I found to be tremendously helpful, and I think everyone should read it, rape survivor or not: After Silence, Rape and My Journey Back, by Nancy Venable Raine.

Before Raine published the book, close friends said things to her like, ''Let's face it, no one wants to hear about such terrible things.'' And, ''I just can't imagine how you can write about something so . . . so very personal.'' And, ''Shall we get off rape to something . . . agreeable?'' Shame presupposes wrongdoing. The things we do not talk about are the things we have done wrong, right? A DUI? A divorce? An F in a class. She writes: ''The sense that I was responsible for the rape supported a more important belief, one that I could not give up, although it had been severely damaged. It was the belief that I could control what happened to me, that my actions had a bearing on the outcome of my life.''

The vast topic of rape is something I occasionally talk to friends about. I never know what they have been through. Without it becoming my identity, I hope that my openness about this can somehow help others who have suffered with the aftermath of a rape, - -people who understand that it is the terror of the violence and the power and the robbing of one’s personhood that is the story of rape, or repeat rapes. It is about being told: "you are not human." Eight years later, I remember dealing with the anxiety, panic, depression, helplessness, and confusion, - - but I usually think of the people who do not have access to help, or who never got help in time. I on the other hand, have been given a new life.

We all need to be part of an open conversation about this social demon, in order to save the lives of those suffering in silence. Inspired by Victor’s lecture, today I am reaching out to you.

you done made clawed z. eagle and me proud

It was quite an experience to watch an NCAA March Madness game featuring the powerhouse of the University of Tennessee and hear the commentator say, "The American University is situated on Embassy Row in our nation's capital, Washington, DC." Had I entered some kind of alternate universe? With five minutes remaining, the game had been tied a few times, and AU was making UT work for their one point lead (49-50). While I still blame American University for poisoning me with their arsenic, and have never felt that my school pride extended far beyond the results of the multi-million dollar endowment dedicated exclusively to flowers on campus, - - today I was certainly cheering!

I actually live in Tennessee, a place where fans paint themselves orange and use all kinds of crazy language like "dominate over" and "suck it." Even my sweet and soon-to-be ordained Divinity School friends Khette and Lillian, have already been ordained by the religion of UT and are the most loyal Vols fans I know. They have even been known to create fear in hearts with their subtle (i.e. orange striped socks) and not so subtle (i.e. "I BLEED ORANGE" t-shirts) displays of allegiance to their team. As you can imagine, this is quite a contrast to my relationship with my undergraduate experience. Perhaps AU might have had a little more luck in the end, if last night I had slept in my black Ann Taylor suit and US Congress ID badge: the uniform of my undergraduate University.

During the final two minutes of the game, when AU apparently forgot how to play basketball, the announcer said, "This will look a lot different in the newspaper tomorrow than it felt watching the game. American University has tenacity about them, don’t they?!" Maybe the tenacity comes from that fact that they are required to sit in class. The Patriot League: scholars, athletes, future leaders. . .