Article from CPT's latest newsletter

(Written for, and edited by, Christian Peacemaker Teams.  In other words, if it doesn't sound QUITE like how I normally write...it's been tweaked lovingly by others.)

On the last day of our Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation, we had big plans.   We wanted to do a public action in response to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (which is now a done deal).  We brainstormed, we strategized, and we agonized over the best time and place and finally, we planned the street theater- a scene of two tables to be held in front of the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá.

One table is the world of free trade, in which Colombia is being devoured by its free trade partners (such as Canada and European Union), while the Colombian resistance tries to hold back the monster of U.S. corporate greed.  This table was based on stories we heard during the delegation, stories of violence and displacement fueled by multinational companies robbing the resources of Colombia.

The other table is God's table, a table marked by equality, mutuality, and abundance.

With this vision in our minds, we got to work, spending hours assembling costumes, writing prayers, and calling Colombian partner organizations.

Soon, the big day arrived.  And... it rained.  A lot.  This was not a shower or a drizzle. It absolutely poured. As they say in Spanish, llovió cántaros. It was obvious that our original plan wasn't going to work.

And then, God showed up.  Earlier in the day, we had briefly met a group of former General Motors employees who were on strike outside the U.S. Embassy.  These were workers who had been injured on the job and then fired by G.M. as a way of escaping their obligation to pay the healthcare costs. These workers wanted justice and so they camped out in front of the diplomatic entrance.  They put a few tents together and occupied the space in shifts. When we met them, they had been there for sixty-four days.  We decided to brave the rain and go join them.

  

What we found there was the table of God's abundance that we had planned to demonstrate in the second half our action. But instead of just a symbolic handing out of bread, we found a living, active sharing.  We shared a little about ourselves, and then we heard their stories - stories of lives derailed by preventable injuries in unsafe work environments, stories of just compensation denied to "the least of these."  One man had to sell his house to pay for hospital bills after a back injury he received in the factory.

We heard God's vision for humanity from Isaiah 25 - a vision of abundance for all, and the destruction of death and injustice, and we prayed and broke bread.  As these stories - these sacred tales of brokenness, injustice, and holy resistance - hung in the air over us like holy incense, we brought out the loaves of bread we'd bought to share during our action, and the G.M employees made agua panela (a hot beverage made water and local unprocessed cane sugar).  

God was there present among us as we shared in the least likely of Eucharists.  For a few minutes in a couple of tents in front of the U.S. Embassy, the Reign of God broke into the world, and we shared the feast of victory for our God. It was beautiful.

 Now, back in Chicago, I reflect on that afternoon in light of the Occupy Wall Street movement that has blossomed in Chicago and so many other cities.  I think of new tents cropping up in equally unlikely places, and I see God continuing to break into our reality around tables every bit as unlikely as the one we stumbled upon in Bogotá.  And maybe across this world, God's Kingdom is continuing to come in the places where it is most needed, but least expected. And maybe one table is being cleared so that a new one might be set.

Where is my mind?

The Pixies seem to be asking the question that I've been wondering about for the past...well, three months or so.  Where is my mind?  Times of radical transition in life are not always conducive to clarity of mind and focus for some of us, and it feels like I've done nothing but transition since the end of July.  First, it was leaving Iowa to move back to Chicago.  Then, the insane first month back of reconnecting with people, and flying down to Texas long enough to say hi and then coming back, and forming a new community that then was scattered across the world for a year, and guest preaching, and tying up loose ends with paperwork and such for first call...while trying to figure out what I feel called to do for that first call, which entailed extra paperwork as an application went in to Global Mission.  Then, right as a relationship ended (largely due to the paperwork going in to Global Mission), school and worked began anew...but there was no time to get comfortable, because I left two weeks into the semester to spend two weeks in Colombia, just in time to get back for reading week.  In some ways, it feels like the semester has only now gotten started.  I can finally be here now.


But...my mind hasn't caught up yet.  It's still in Webster County, and a million places in Chicago other than the black building at 55th and University, and all over the world with the YAGM, and in future places where I might be called but can't yet imagine.  It's why I've struggled to blog for the past few months; I have a million things to say, but my brain is saying them all at once.  I wish my mind would settle the hell down.

An open letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama,


This is not a letter I imagined that I'd be writing back in 2008 when I, rather enthusiastically, cast my ballot for you here in your own home neighborhood in Chicago, Hyde Park.  I felt pretty connected to your campaign - I managed to watch your victory speech after the Iowa caucus in (of all places) southern Chile during a year of global service with my church, I moved to an apartment four blocks from your house in Chicago to begin my seminary studies, and I took a job working at an after-school program at the Lab School here.  You're the hometown hero in these parts - our neighbor down the street, our friend, our best chance for vindication.


In 2008, you campaigned reasonably left of center - you're no Bernie Sanders or Paul Wellstone, but you convinced us progressive-minded folk that you were one of us.  So, we turned out and voted for you...and now, we're not sure if you are, in fact, the person who we voted for.  You've compromised, time and time again, with the right-wing leadership of the Republican Party.  You have backed down from genuine systemic reform, and settled for putting expensive band-aids on gaping wounds, such as our miserable failure of a healthcare system.  In the process, you've lost a lot of people like me's trust.  Mr. President, I don't trust you, or your word, when it comes to policy decisions and core principles.  The man I voted for in 2008 appears to have been a fictitious character.


I will confess that I have little knowledge of the inner workings of the Washington political world.  For those of us on the outside, it is a giant mystery - most of suspect it's a beast fed by corporate money, but it could run on any number of equally odious things for all I know.  However it is fueled, I grant that it is a system that you know better than I do.  That said, I feel as if we have seen not only a lack of conviction, but a lack of leadership.  Time and time again, as you have abandoned campaign promises and progressive ideals in the name of "compromise" with an increasingly blood-hungry Republican Party, you have fumbled as a leader.  You've lost those of us on the left by forgetting that we helped elect you.  You've lost the right by being a black liberal who doesn't reference Jesus every fifth word...though to be fair, you can't lose what you never had.  And, you've lost the center by presenting yourself as elitist, aloof, unconcerned with the goings-on of daily life for most U.S. Americans, inept, and unreadable.  You've lost us all, Mr. President, and I'm sorry to say that you've got nobody to blame but yourself.


And so, Mr. President, I ask you - as just one little voice coming from your own neighborhood, as one person who genuinely respects you and your life story even while being disappointed with your presidential leadership - not to run for re-election.  I will name the elephant in the room - most of us are terrified that you are incapable of winning.  Yes, the election is a year away (and much can change), but there's been no evidence of change on the wing to give us hope that it's possible.  The closest to hope we have is that the Republican Party can't seem to find their ass with their hands right now, either.  The nightmare scenario - you versus one of the lunatic fringe candidates, such as a Rick Perry or currently flavor-of-the-month Herman Cain...and you losing.  Pair that with losing the Senate, and this country will be set to go back to the "good ol' days" of fine leaders like Warren G. Harding and Herbert Hoover.


Don't run to save face, and then wax poetic as you lose on election night.  Back out, now, and give the 3/4 of us who don't share the corporate-funded Tea Party's nightmare vision of laissez-faire economic hell a chance to keep that beast at bay.  Please, Mr. President - if you can't deliver the goods, then nobly step aside to make room for someone who can, whoever that may be.

Where I'm At

One of my favorite songs, and one with which I have a long and colorful history, sums up where I'm at these days.  Actual details to come; for now, Third Eye Blind can do the talking.

And now for something completely different

Just so that everybody will be reminded that I am not, in fact, a Democrat (Green Party ftw!) after my last post...have I mentioned lately that I've been exceptionally unimpressed with President Obama's leadership, or rather lack thereof?


In 2008, when I voted for him, I suspect I was one of millions who cast my ballot for him with a certain sense of hope and optimism.  After the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency, I think a lot of us were desperately hungry for someone - anyone - who was willing to put forward a progressive-minded agenda that seemed the antidote to the doldrums in which we had found ourselves as a nation.  Bonus points for being able to speak in coherent, complete sentences.  


And now, pushing three years later, the buyer's regret is strong with with this guy living in Chicago.  While I appreciate Obama's community organizing model of leadership, I think it is obvious after three years that...it doesn't work in DC.  You cannot "community organize" the half of Congress that wakes up every morning and throws darts at a picture of you over their coffee and Cheerios.  Furthermore, while I respect the President's attempts at staying "above the fray" and not getting down into the mudpit with the partisan bulldogs...that also hasn't proved remarkably successful, either.  What should have been three years of telling us very direct truths about who's to blame for the pathetic state of this nation's economy - rampant deregulation, tax policies principally designed to let the rich pay lower taxes, percent-wise, than the rest of us, expensive wars marked by questionable ethical justification and little practical payoff, corporate empowerment that threatens to send us back to the "good ol' days" of robber barons and wage-slaves - was instead spent dithering spinelessly, failing to explain matters and, in the process, losing the rhetorical battle on nearly every key issue.


And the chickens are coming home to roost - the 2010 election was, let's be honest, a dumpster fire.  The recent debt ceiling agreement was a Tea Party-orchestrated coup that never should have happened.  A NY Times article recently compared Obama's leadership, very unfavorably, with FDR's during the Depression.  FDR, from the get-go, named the culprits responsible for the economic collapse, took them to task, and - most importantly - COMMUNICATED THIS OFTEN AND WITH CLARITY TO THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY.  Fireside chats, anyone?  But...we don't get this with Obama.  We get the aloofness that comes from being above the fray.  We get a cool operation who leaves us wondering what key values he might be willing to throw under the bus next (remember how he almost gutted Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid to appease the Tea Party?).  We get a man who seems to have an almost pathological aversion to conflict, in a time where we could really stand a chief executive who will NOT roll over and play dead.


If we end up with a President Perry or President Bachmann...it will be nobody's fault but Obama's.

President Crotch

I learned earlier, (thanks to this article posted by my friend Kaleigh: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/13/rick-perry-a-candidate-who-will-do-anything-to-beat-romney-and-obama.html) that Rick Perry's old nickname, among certain folks in the Texas political world, was Crotch thanks to his tight jeans and tendency to adjust himself very publicly.


I have never been a fan of people declaring that they'll leave the country if so-and-so is elected president, but...Global Missions will look a LOT more appealing if the phrase "President Perry" becomes a reality.  Take it from someone who lived in Texas for most of the man's political career - he's scum.  This is a man who has never had an adult career - he is as smooth-operator-career-politician as they come.  He has no love for, or interest in, serving the people; his primary interest, as far as I can tell, has been in maintaining his own political power and position.  Again, he's never had an adult job other than politics.  He also, as I learned in this article, managed a C in Animal Breeding.  Not only is he a career politician, he's not even a bright one.


As for the claims that Perry has saved the Texas economy, consider that most of the job creation during his time as governor has come either from the surge in energy prices (he had nothing to do with that), or in the form of minimum jobs without benefits (he likely had plenty to do with that).  Also consider that, during his time as governor, Texas' budget has been gutted, at least when it comes to education and providing services for poor Texans...and, by the way, there are a lot of them thanks to the superabundance of low-paying jobs with no benefits.  Look up the numbers - Texas leads the nation in uninsured residents, uninsured children, and children living below the poverty line, at last I checked.  As for worker's rights, well...it's telling that at least one company which set up shot in Texas will only build facilities in developing nations...and Texas.


Have jobs been created in Texas?  Sure.  Are they the kind of jobs which we need as a country to move forward?  Nope.  Have Perry's "screw the poor" policies kept the state out of fiscal trouble?  Nope; the state is $27B in the red for this fiscal year, and as the list of cuts shows, the problem is Texas' reluctance to overhaul its tax code or invest wisely in the future rather than loads of wasteful spending.  Is this what we want for the rest of the country?  Is this presidential leadership?  Will this make us a better, stronger union?  Please vote "no" when it comes to Crotch Perry.

I took a plane out to find some truth, but all I found, I can't seem to leave behind

Well, distinguished readers, this homesick adopted Chicagoan has returned to the city of his dreams.  If you've never dreamt of Chicago, I encourage you to do so at the soonest possible opportunity.  To give you something to dream by...

Yes, the song is a re-post...so sue me.  It's gorgeous.  In other news, it has been an insanely busy month, in case the dearth of updates did not give that away.  Since mid-July, I have....

-gotten back together with Emily

-ridden my bike most of the way across Iowa

-said goodbye to Dayton, Iowa

-driven a moving van across Iowa and Illinois back to Chicago

-settled into a new apartment

-Gotten pink eye, which caused me to miss a good friend's wedding

-flown to Texas to visit family and friends-who-are-family-in-my-mind

-preached at a Lutheran church on the SW Side

Now, I get to catch my breath...for a couple of days.  YAGM orientation starts on Wednesday, and it will, no doubt, be an insanely wonderful busy week of 18 hour days spent with 50 outstanding young adults who are getting ready to spend the next year of their lives abroad, being surprised by how God meets them wherever they land.  Then, another few days of breath-catching, and then returning student retreat/fall registration, then a long weekend, and then classes.  Senior year.

It doesn't quite feel real, yet, that I'm nearly done with my seminary, and candidacy, journey.  By the end of tomorrow, I'll have sent my edited approval essay to my candidacy committee chair (knock on wood); by the end of December, I'll (knock on wood) be approved to take a call and will have turned in first call paperwork, including geographic preference forms.  More than ever, the future is looming over me - and this time, it's not just short-term choices that affect where I land for a year.  I'm watching the birthing of a career, of living in the same place for an extended period of time, without moving around and spending summers elsewhere only to come back to a new apartment and new roommates, for the first time in my life.  

It's exciting, mostly.  As much as I love wandering, I'm ready to settle down somewhere for a while.  I'm ready to find another congregation, like Emanuel, full of people who want to find ways to proclaim the Gospel and form Christian community...and, this time, be able to put down roots.  I'm ready to arrive at a point in life where I can actually look at marrying and starting a family and say that, realistically, it's feasible.

Of course, the nervousness comes with it.  Where will I land?  I'm planning to make it clear that I want to stay in the Upper Midwest; will I actually get to do that?  What if I get sent back to Texas (dear God, please no....)?  What if I get sent to another extremely rural area because I have ministry experience in that sort of an environment?  What'll I do?  Even if I do get to be where I'd like geographically speaking, what sort of congregation will I find?  Will I get to lead a group of mission-minded, progressive-thinking Christ-followers who are willing to embrace all of the scandal and risk that the Gospel entails, or will I find myself at a church where lutefisk and krumkake take precedence over serving others and sharing the Good News?

Then again, even as those thoughts fill my head, I remember that, a year ago, I was two weeks into my year in the last place on earth I'd have ever chosen to live.  Not that I really want to dive deep into rural living again, but God found me there in southeast Webster County and equipped me for the things to which I was called to do there.  Same goes for Bethlehem in Beverly, Boulder, Montevideo, Ghana, Seguin, and Lake Jackson.  Wherever the Wind of God (no coincidence that "spirit" and "wind" are the same word...) blows me, I know I'll find what I need.  Here's hoping it blows to Regions 3 or 5, but even if it doesn't...I'll have what I need.