Category Archives: Justice

Featured, Justice

A Call to Repentance from Anti-Blackness & Gaslighting for the UMC

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“They were asking for it,” I imagine at least one of those officers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge said, as they rode off with the blood of John Lewis and Amelia Boynton on their bully clubs. 

They were asking for it.

They wanted the club.

They wanted the fist. 

They wanted the teargas.

It is what an abuser says, whether that be a system or a person, when the abused try to reveal their cruelty in the light of day.

When we practice non-violent resistance that does not mean there is no violence. Non-violent resistance means that we position our bodies in such a way that we take the risk of receiving violence. At lunch counters in Greensboro, on buses in Alabama, in the streets of Ferguson, in front of the Waller County Jail. 

We do this for a reason. We do this because there are evil and oppressive forces in the world that knot nooses at night, that abuse their staff by day behind close doors, that interrupt the ability of elderly Black folk to vote, that hide immigrant children in internment camps and hotel rooms, that end the life of Black women in back rooms of back wood jails. 

We bring this violence into the view of the public.

As John Lewis said, we get in the way. In the way of abuse. In the way of violence. In the way of oppression. 

We invite the oppressor to wreak their violence on our bodies in broad daylight, or in images at night on television screens, in order to reveal to the complacent, the privileged, and the comfortable the true violence of the politician, the Sheriff, and the manager who sits beside them in the church pew on Sunday. We aim to deprive them of their ability to look away, to be silent and complicit. 

We get in the way of violence in order to reveal in the light of day the evil that is done behind closed doors and in dark alleyways.

They were asking for it.

They wanted the club.

They wanted the fist. 

They wanted the teargas.

“You will see the desire for tear gas on both sides.”

I made a grave mistake a couple years ago. 

My denomination, the United Methodist Church, had chosen a book written by – what I would call – a Conservative think-tank with ties to Brigham Young University, as The Book that would save this huge and fracturing global community. 

The book, The Anatomy of Peace, explains a theory of community in which we must have a “Heart of Peace,” rather than a “Heart at War.” The philosophy is taught through a semi-factual, semi-fictional story, although it only acknowledges the semi-fictional part in a small disclaimer in the foreword. The intent of the transfixing dialogue of the book is to draw the reader into the story in a way that makes the details feel intensely real, because many of them are.

The part that is fictional is the identities of the men who created and are teaching the philosophy. In real life, the creators and main teachers of the philosophy are White Mormon men with ties to Brigham Young University. Men who practice a religion that is firmly committed to traditional gender roles, a religion that does not permit women to hold authority, and which did not permit Black people to participate in church ordinances until 1978.

In the story, those identities are concealed behind the fictional characters of an “angry Palestinian man” and an “old, wise Black man.”

Thus, we arrive at my mistake. In the two pieces I have written previously about this framing for our denominational progress, I was able to articulate the “what” – literary blackface – yet, I failed to adequately articulate the “why” – resistance suppression. 

My denomination had encouraged, and in some cases required, every leader – clergy and laity – in the whole world to buy and read this book. We are the third largest denomination in the United States, after the Roman Catholics and Baptists, so that is a lot of books. 

Not only that, but we had invested millions to have a group of diverse leaders meet over the course of a few years, with the book as their guide, to try to find a way forward for our church. 

We had invested so deeply there was no turning back.

When I wrote about this initially, I did have a lot of support after I published a blog explaining the problems of having an oppressive philosophy created by White men presented by fictional People of Color, but all I could feel was the danger and the anger. The Bishop who called me out by name in a response posted to her Conference website. The colleague who invited me to a “dinner for friends” only to blindside me with an angry diatribe. The longterm mentor who never spoke to me again. 

I was a young Queer woman, going through the process of coming out in a church that denies my right to exist, still in the process of recovering from two years of having my life under threat during the movement for Justice for Sandra Bland. I felt and was vulnerable to their power and their anger. I let their aggression make me smaller, quieter. I lived with wings clipped. 

As I watched the funeral of John Lewis today, I realized that the world needs more courage than that, so let me try one more time to right my wrong and give you the “why” and not just the “what” of the “how” our denomination needs to redirect its gaze in the future. 

The book itself, The Anatomy of Peace, tells us clearly the “Why” – the root of its inception – if we are able to wade through all the dialogue to sort reality from fiction. 

The book portrays a scene in which a diverse group of parents have come to drop their kids off at a recovery camp, and as part of that process must sit through some teaching themselves. 

When it comes time for the main teacher to tell his story, he finally explains that the philosophy he teaches came from some formative experiences in the late 1960’s that were defining moments for his life – those being the “race riots” near the campus of Yale University in 1967, and the Black Panther Trials that followed. 

There is great specificity in the storytelling that follows from pages 186-194. The narrator who explains the story tells how he came to be convinced that those who protested injustice were in the wrong, because they had a “Heart at War” and were not starting from a place of empathy for “those they railed against” or concern for the well being of those they felt were oppressing them. 

The reader accepts this because the teacher and the student of this philosophy are presented as a “wise old Black man” and an “angry young Palestinian man.” Rather than the truth of White men reacting to Black outrage, it is presented as a difference of opinion within the Black community about what the appropriate way of handling anger is. What those who believe in resisting injustice-  as Jesus did in the Temple – would call ‘righteous indignation,’ the “wise old Black man’ reframes as a “Heart at War.” 

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Images of police brutality from protests on the New Haven Green, referred to in The Anatomy of Peace, scenes that were formative to Warner’s philosophy. The Anatomy of Peace explains that the “riots” caused the observer to understand how selfish the Black protestors were. (File Photo of Hartford Courant)

All of this makes more sense, when we understand that while that scene of Black protest in 1967 did motivate the creator of this philosophy, he was neither an “old wise Black man” nor a “young angry Palestinian man.” Rather, Dr. C. Terry Warner, the Founder of the Arbinger Institute, and the creator of the philosophy, was the one who was just finishing his PhD at Yale University in 1967, before moving to Brigham Young University where he would eventually form the likes of James Ferrell… who would later join the staff at the Arbinger Institute Warner founded, and become the man behind The Anatomy of Peace.

The Arbinger Institute does not put any names of authors on its book. It says it does this to keep the authors from ego temptation. In reality, it makes it much harder for the reader to sort through fact from fiction, and to see to the truth of the “why” of “what” they are reading. 

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Dr. C. Terry Warner

A White man from a Conservative faith tradition, was upset by the behavior of Black protestors and created a philosophy that would shame their behavior, and form Institutional work spaces in which those who exhibited the behavior of resistance would be gaslit and labeled as having a “Heart at War.”

Years later, racial tension would again form the framework for the advancing of the philosophy when James Ferrell would himself have formative experiences surrounding race at Yale when following in his teacher’s footsteps and becoming a student there.

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James Ferrell

As an article in BYU Magazine in 2007 explained, “As [James Ferrell] studied legal cases having to do with race relations, it occurred to him that the hallmarks of self-deception are everywhere. His thoughts led to a year-long writing project on how self-deception can explain current and historical problems between races. The resulting paper crystallized Ferrell’s passion for the ideas he had learned from Warner.”

Warner and Ferrell in observing the behavior of Black people during both of their times of study at Yale, concluded that “self-deception” was the root of racial tensions – rather than actual injustice that must be faced and dismantled with all haste and urgency in a way that will diminish the privilege White people hold over others.

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The New Haven Chapter of the Black Panther Party, who The Anatomy of Peace mentions as having such a formative impact on the creation of the philosophy that would help people understand the selfishness of Black protestors. (Photo by David Fenton/AP from Hartford Courant)

It is easy to see why such a philosophy would be attractive to Institutional leaders and those responsible for the survival of Institutions, and those who may not like to see their authority challenged. That, thus, set Dr. C. Terry Warner and the Arbinger Institute up to create a thriving and profitable industry of “peace-making” as everyone from Nike to Boeing to the United Methodist Church would seek to implement their philosophy as Institutional culture, and employ the diverse group of teachers that they hired to be the face of the philosophy.

For those who are, at this point, feeling confused, let’s dive into the story a bit. 

After, setting the scene and having nearly two hundred pages of dialogue between parents at this camp orientation – dialogue that is likely drawn from multiple real encounters – the main teacher begins to explain the origin of having a “Heart at Peace” rather than a “Heart at War.” He describes how when he arrived to the United States as “an angry Palestinian immigrant” he found himself (who knows why) in New Haven, Connecticut observing a “race riot” on the New Haven Green. He is gratified to see Black folxs resisting their oppressors, it reminds him of how he’d like to fight back against the Israelis. 

(I must remind you that the lens is made up, it was Dr. C. Terry Warner who would have been at or attentive to Yale in 1967 to observe the “race riots” that took place there.)

As he is watching, the “angry Palestinian man” starts up a conversation with an “old wise Black man” because he assumes he will agree with the protestors (the authors of The Anatomy of Peace know that you also will assume this, and so they are intentional in using a Black man instead of the real person – a White man – because they know you will not receive anti-Black Lives Matter rhetoric from a White man. Yet, they know that we will accept and promote it, if in our minds we are picturing a Black man saying it). 

The “old wise Black man”, instead of supporting the protests, teaches “the angry young Palestinian man” about how the protestors are wrong:

“So the oppressed are fighting back,” I commented almost nonchalantly…

“Yes,” The man responded, without moving his eyes from he scene, “on both sides.”

“Both sides?” I repeated in surprise.

“Yes.”

“How so?” I challenged. “I only see tear gas on one side.”

“If you look closely,” he answered, “you will see the desire for tear gas on both sides.”

(The Anatomy of Peace, pg. 187)

We are to understand that the ones receiving the tear-gas are just as in the wrong because they want the tear gas. They are just as responsible for it as those firing it. They were not being loving to the ones firing it. They asked for it. They made them do it. The philosophy of an abuser – that the responsibility for the conflict lies at the feet of those who raise it to visibility, not at the pervasive and persistent oppression that caused it. 

The oppressed must be taught to have a “Heart of Peace” – to be docile, forgiving, malleable. 

Our angers are equal. We are both in the wrong. If you did not mouth off, I would not have had to slap you. 

We accept the narrative that follows only because our analysis is so lackadaisical that we will swallow down the musings of a White man on the actions of Black people as wisdom because we are told it is an “old wise Black man” saying them. 

If this fictional “old wise Black man” took on flesh he would be a Herman Cain talking about a John Lewis – God rest both their souls. Whose legacy do you want to be following? 

With the help of the “old wise Black man”, the “angry Palestinian” soon sees the error of his ways. He realizes how wrong it is for the protestors to not be considering the feelings of those whose abuse they are protesting against.

“The people Ben and I witnessed that day on the New Haven Green appeared more concerned with their own burdens than with others’. I can’t tell for sure as I wasn’t in their skin, but it didn’t appear that they were considering the burdens of those who they were railing against, for example, or those whose lives they were putting in danger. It would have been well for them and their cause if they had begun to think as carefully about others as they did about themselves.”

(The Anatomy of Peace, pg. 190)

The Black protestors are portrayed as selfish for not thinking about how their protest might hurt the feelings of their oppressors, for not thinking of the burdens of their oppressors. The “angry Palestinian man” wonders why they weren’t asking themselves what might be the challenges and trials of the people they were protesting against, and how might they be adding to the trials and challenges of their oppressors. 

Only a White man would write that, and only a White dominated Institution would accept, purchase and promote it. 

The “angry Palestinian man” realizes how “wrong” he has been. He comes to regret the ways he has been insensitive to the Israelis by being angry at them for killing his father, without thinking about their feelings or the fact that they have bad days and emotional needs too. He decides he doesn’t want to be like the protestors. He wants to have a “Heart of Peace,” not a “Heart at War.”

(It is no coincidence that the Arbinger Institute has Policing Executives and former Israeli Government officials as their advisors and promoters, but not protestors or Palestinians. This is a resource for those who hold the power to use, not those who are on the underside of injustice.)

We, the readers, are only willing to accept those words and all the ones that follow because it is the stereotypical “old wise Black man” – played in our minds by Morgan Freeman – that is saying them, and it is the “angry Palestinian” who is receiving them and being “transformed” by them. 

We would never be willing to accept, purchase, promote and teach a philosophy that was built upon a desire to discredit the outrage of the Black Panthers, the Black Lives Matter movement, the Voting Rights Movement, the Farmworker’s Movement, etc. We would never be willing to knowingly accept into our minds a philosophy built with the intention to shame and gaslight those who protest and resist.

We would never knowingly allow White men talking about their opinions of Black protestors to be the foundation for the philosophy that would be our denomination’s salvation – but that is exactly what we did. We could claim that we do not see resistance and protest as a problem to be solved, but for Dr. C. Terry Warner and James Ferrell it was. They told us that themselves through the masks of Yusuf and Ben.  

We Progressives – especially we White Progressives, which is what we call White Moderates these days – are so very willing to drink that same cup of tea if you just throw a little racial artifice in there for us. Something to sweeten it, to cover the bitterness. 

I did not raise the alarm about this book two years ago because I am some snarky b*^#ch who just likes to point my finger when others falter. I use my voice when it matters. I raised the alarm because this philosophy is dangerous, because it promotes abusive gaslighting in the workplace and undermines movements for justice. 

You do not need me to tell you that. Yusuf, “the angry Palestinian”, and Ben, “the wise old Black man” tell you that, right there on page 187.

“See the desire for teargas on both sides.”

They wanted the teargas.

They were asking for it.

They wanted the club.

They wanted the fist. 

The Anatomy of Peace actually makes no secret of where and why it’s philosophy emerged. We just wanted so badly not to see it. Because we too are the oppressor, complicit regardless of our gender or race or orientation, in the oppressive systems that we uphold with our participation rather than dismantle with our resistance.

The truth of the matter is that this scene on the New Haven Green did happen. There was an uprising on the New Haven Green in 1967. There was a young man who observed it, either in person or from a distance, and who built a philosophy rooted in his desire for people to understand that the abusive anger of racist White men – like Lou in the book – is equal to the righteous indignation of those they oppress.

If the oppressed will not get angry – if they will have a “Heart of Peace” – then the oppressor will not need to raise their voice either. There will be no need for the club, no need for the fist, no need for the tear gas. No need for episcopal censure, changing of appointments, or career suicide. We have more subtle ways of keeping things under control. 

Like the analogy of the Willie Lynch Letter, the book contains instructions for Institutions on how to keep the marginalized quiet and docile. By gaslighting them. By telling them that there is something wrong with their anger. 

By making sure that the one Black woman who they let into the workspace, who has enough self-respect not to endure their misogynoir in silence, will surely be seen after the Company does a training with this book as “crazy”, as “unstable” – and within the church, as “ungodly.”

We cannot abandon her to that fate designed by racist minds.

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Some of the Black Panther defendants that are referred to in The Anatomy of Peace, as having been formative in the creation of the philosophy that would teach people not to be like them. On the left is Frances Carter, and in the middle are Margaret Hutchins and Rose Marie Smith with her baby. (Photo by Robert Ficks / Hartford Courant)

To drive that point completely home, the book includes an “angry Black woman” who is revealed at the end of the book – suprise! – to be the daughter of the “wise old Black man.” The character who is created to be a stand-in for all the Black women who have frustrated the authors in their lives is named “Gwyn” and at the end she confesses that her father tried to teach her not to be angry about racial injustice, but she would not listen. The “angry Black woman” thanks the “formerly angry Palestinian man” for helping her finally hear the “wise old Black man” who is her father. 

“My ears have been closed to my dad’s ideas for years. ‘Don’t try to feed your philosophy to me,’ I used to tell him when he tried to suggest that I think of things a different way. He thought I should give up the hate I have for my former husband, forgive a sister who has wronged me, and rethink my opinions on race… Thanks for helping me to hear him, you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

(The Anatomy of Peace, pgs. 195-196)

 Please, tell me you understand why that is disturbing.

The White man created a fictional Black woman to be the daughter of the fictional Black man, to apologize to the White man in the mask of the Palestinian man, and say he’s been right all along. 

Then the White man convinces countless corporations, institutions, and my denomination to read and teach the book and humiliate and shame that Black woman in their institutions over and over again. 

When the consequences come, it will be easy to see that we were asking for it – those who resist, those who speak up, those who get in the way of injustice. Those that block bridges and roads and General Conferences with their bodies. 

They were asking for it.

They wanted the teargas.

They wanted the club.

They wanted the fist.

We who willingly stand beneath your blows, do so to reveal your violence – yet, it is you who create it. 

In this new awakening of consciousness about racism in our nation and institutions, may we finally have the courage to name *specifically* the ways that we suppress and gaslight the voices that cry out for justice. May we repent of our racism, turn away from the ways that it benefits us, and begin to do our utmost to get in the way of injustice.

“You must find a way to get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.” –John Lewis

 

For further reading:

Dr. Martin Luther King’s “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious”

Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes’ Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength

Dr. Pamela Lightsey’s Our Lives Matter: A Womanist Queer Theology

Dr. Brittney Cooper’s Eloquent Rage, and this article on it.

Dr. Carol Anderson’s White Rage.

Dr. Obery M. Hendricks’ The Politics of Jesus

Featured, Justice

Dear White Men: An Invitation to Resist

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I am addressing this invitation to White Men, particularly Progressive White Men, particularly Cis Progressive White Men (although there may be many things contained herein that may apply or resonate with you, my other White Siblings – or others that benefit from Heteropatriarchal Anti-Blackness – and so you are welcome to listen in and receive the parts of the invitation that fit your story.)

I am writing this to you at a crucial moment, as the cries for justice in the street that you have so enthusiastically joined – in a moment when it had become the acceptable thing to do – now begin to catch the foreshadowing of the soft wind of comfort and complacency that so often causes White folxs to turn our faces back away from the storm. 

There is still – even now – the sense of so much possibility, so much transformation. The world shudders to its core and threatens to crack wide open and give birth to something new. I wonder if this is what it felt like to live in that great moment of opportunity that was strategized by Bayard Rustin, organized by Ella Baker, and galvanized by Fannie Lou Hamer.

I wonder also, if this is what it felt like to live in the aftermath of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when Black voices demanded Reparations and we – White church leaders – offered and funded systems of “Reconciliation” instead. Choosing even in our response to hold on to the myth that we knew best. Choosing a form of investment that would allow us to continue to collect the receipts, control the resources and determine the outcomes – rather than accepting the invitation to divest from colonization and trust Black wisdom.

We failed then. Help us write a new story. 

In order to do that, I am asking you to understand, White Man, that we need you, we just do not need you at the front of the line. Just because the teacher told us to all line up behind you, does not mean you need to cooperate if you know in the pit of your stomach that you truly have no idea where to go.

Release the burden of leadership placed upon you by White Supremacist systems and Heteropatriarchal institutions. We need you. We just don’t need you there. 

Your education, your formation, your experience, and your perspective are inadequate to lead us to where we need to go.

This is an invitation to release that pressure on yourself. You do not need to lead us. You do not know where to go. 

I know you are feeling anxiety about this. Cramming in as many books, articles, documentaries as possible to make up for lost time and find the language to use so as not to embarrass yourself, to reestablish yourself as an expert.

This is an invitation to release yourself from that expectation. We do not need you to absorb the wisdom of Womanist Theology and regurgitate it in brief quotes in your speeches. We need you to give the Womanists the mic. 

This is an invitation to understand that we don’t need you to be our experts. No amount of book reading is going to change that. That chapter where White men got to do all the writing and speaking and leading and deciding is over. Grieve it if you must, but move on, do not let it hold you back from the new and useful life that awaits. 

There is within this moment and movement certain Shibboleths by which those who have been in the trenches recognize one another, and recognize those whose lead we’ve learned to follow. You will not find those signifiers in a book. You will not find them on social media. There is no code that you can study to crack. You will only find your way by living. By losing. By sacrifice. 

Don’t misunderstand me: You must study. It is true that you must do the book reading. But what the book reading is going to do is equip you to be a help rather than a hindrance in getting us where we need to go. It is not going to equip you to lead us in getting there. Lay that burden down. 

This reading you are doing must be paired with accountability, because without it we become dangerous. Like the Karens and the Amy Coopers – or should I say the Kens and the Brock Turners – using our knowledge of the corrupt system to our own benefit.

Release that need for stability and respect. Let yourself be unsettled. Set off balance. Disturbed. Stay there. Do not fight the discomfort. Remember that the whole world has been set up to give you an exit that the rest of us have never had. Resist the urge to use the eject button. 

Resist the urge to reestablish yourself. Not being in the lead is a completely legitimate way of living. I know that our White Supremacist heteropatriarchial culture has taught you that there is only one respectable role for you, and there is anxiety in not fulfilling it. But what you have been taught is a lie. 

Please, siblings, be set free from this particular burden and wound we carry into this conversation about White Supremacy. The belief that has been taught to you in subtle and direct ways that your place is at the head – at the head of the march, at the head of the church, at the head of the family. Lay that burden down. There are many other legitimate ways for you to live. We need you, we just don’t need you there. 

Receive this as an invitation to another kind of life.

You came to me once, White Progressive Man, and told me your excitement about planting your own church. You told me about how your plan was to find a Black woman to be your associate pastor at your new church start, so that you could build a diverse congregation. I suggested that instead you should find a Black woman to be your senior pastor, and you could be the associate at her church, and serve under her leadership. Like the rich young ruler, you turned away, albeit with a bit more resentment than sadness. 

I was trying to pass on the favor of what has been done for me, trying to intervene on your behalf. 

You and I have been making very intentional decisions for the past couple decades, and it has taken us to very different places. None of this has been by happenstance. I’ve had people kind enough to intervene on my behalf, to refuse to let me give in to comfort; Black women who have gripped onto my calling when I couldn’t even see it myself. They intervened on my behalf time and again, offering me direct opportunities to sabotage my privilege, and I am now trying to pass on that favor. If you’re open to it, I’d like to intervene on your behalf. I’d like to intervene on behalf of the calling you have, and the faith to which you hold. 

The sooner you realize, grieve, and release the reality that your education, experience and perspective are inadequate to lead us where we need to go, the sooner you can start the very important work of following the leadership of those directly impacted by the system of injustice that we claim to want to overturn.

Society has too often placed you at the top of a pyramid built upon the labor and tears of the marginalized. The quickest way to fix that is for you to voluntarily come down. 

May I suggest following the lead of Black women? I have found it to be a very fulfilling way of living. 

Instead of pivoting to figure out which books to read to reposition yourself as an expert and regain some sense of stability and control in the midst of a world that is spinning out from under you, I’d like to invite you to lay down that burden and accept that you will never be the expert again. That the world never needed to be under you, and that if it is spinning out of that postion, let it spin. 

Be at peace. 

Release. 

Start the journey. 

We need you. We just don’t need you there. 

Guilt paralyzes, but conviction leads to action. Reject your guilt, embrace your conviction. 

We are in a crucial moment, when we can already start to feel the foreshadowing – if not the reality – of the tone-policing, the adjustments, the slight turning towards voices that make White people more comfortable. You will soon be offered ways of assuaging these intense emotions you’ve been feeling in ways that cost you little. You are probably already being offered exit ramps off the streets where you’ve been marching. You are probably already being offered theories and language and responses that will let you feel like you are still a part of building justice, without feeling so unsettled, off-balance – open to criticism and accusation and loss.

Resist your urge to re-establish Stability. Respectability. Control. Balance.

If the world is about to turn, lean into it. Don’t fight it.

When you’ve been through this cycle enough times, you know how to recognize the warning signs, how to feel the shifts in the wind. This is the moment to lean into the wind, not to be swept away by it. This it the time to resist the pull of the tide that is tempting you back towards the complacency and comfort that we have been taught we deserve. 

Do not trade in the cries of the people for the docile demands that promise to decrease your discomfort while restoring your sense of equilibrium. 

Stay off balance. 

White siblings – because deadly racism is not a pain we feel, but an injustice we observe – we struggle to have the heart and energy to keep going. Do not lose courage as we begin to think about the implications for our own lives. If we truly understand that the police were originally created to protect us – and only us – could there not be a bias that would enter into our perception of the demands being made? Do we really want to live in a world without that disproportionate protection that we have learned to enjoy? Do we really want to give up the ways that we benefit from the violence inflicted upon others?

As White people we are tempted to give up, to soften our tone, to turn down the volume and the energy. Sometimes we are scared, sometimes we are confused, and sometimes we are just tired. 

I have been hearing from so many of you, telling me how tired you are, asking me how I’ve done this for years. Beloved, now is no time to grow weary. And the brief decades I have been living as a race traitor in no way come close to the reality of living one’s life as the target of racism and White Supremacy. We cannot grow weary after we have taken only a few steps. We have only barely stopped crawling and begun to learn to walk. We are still wiping the goop of The Matrix out of our eyes. Don’t stop now. 

Whiteness always rises up and colonizes and occupies and reframes and controls the narrative and tries to rewrite the story. We make of radical Brown Jesus a White Stained Glass window. We make of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a pithy quote, a street name, a warning to Black radicals to stay in their place. It’s happening. It’s beginning again as it always does. Do not accept this. Dig in your heels. Refuse to go back to the comfortable rooms from which you emerged. Rage, resist. This is where we need you. 

Not to lead us. Not to get us back on track. Rather, to sabotage the tracks so that we cannot go back to “normal.” Refuse the cup of power and comfort.  For once in your life, become a true enemy to your own privilege. 

I want you to be set free from the myth that you need to lead. The story that White Supremacy and Patriarchy have told you. There is another life, another world, another reality, another possibility. 

The very way that you exist in the world is a result of the system that you claim to want to destroy. If enough of you chose to divest yourself of power, you could deal a real blow to the hierarchy upon which you preside. 

I heard you speaking recently of all the privilege that you can bring to the table. Instead of grief, there was a hint of excitement in your voice. As if you’d cracked the code. As if you’d found the solution. The path out of guilt and back into leadership. I know it feels good to feel useful. Yet, as I watch you don your robes and stole – enjoying being called Father here in the Southwest where the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church endows you with increased deference from the general population – I wonder as you enjoy that attention if it occurs to you that you are relishing the fruits of White Supremacist Patriarchy even as you strive to protest it.

There’s a shortcut out of all of this. Instead of us working to dismantle the systems that give you the privilege, that make you the Senior Pastor instead of the Associate, you could sabotage the system. You could refuse to cooperate. You could deny the opportunities and positions offered to you. 

I’ve been called a Trojan horse more than once in my life, because the package doesn’t match the contents. Be a Trojan Horse. Help us bust through the walls that were built to protect you. Tear the system down. 

Help us change this for our children. 

Don’t support the movement in visible, performative ways, while simultaneously resisting its momentum in subtle, invisible ways. 

Lay your burden down. 

Ask yourself, can you see yourself as Mary, sitting at the feet of Black Woman Jesus. Can you choose the “better part.” Or is your imagination incapable of seeing yourself anywhere in that story except presiding and leading and speaking and teaching and writing from the seat of White Jesus. 

In the great words of Lauryn Hill in her song Freedom Time: 

“Everybody knows that they guilty
Everybody knows that they’ve lied
Everybody knows that they guilty

Resting on their conscience eating their inside

It’s freedom, said it’s freedom time now
It’s freedom, said it’s freedom time now
Time to get free, or give yourselves up now
It’s freedom, said it’s freedom time.”

Things you can do (i.e. some of the rules I’ve lived by): 

Educate yourself in order to be useful, not to be an expert.

Follow- @CandyCornball, @BreeNewsome, @WilGafney, @AliciaTCrosby, @RevEmmaJ, @DrChanequa, @DesireeAdaway, @RevDrIrie (Womanists etc. who want follows post in comments and I’ll edit to add them here)

Read- Fish Sandwich Heaven, WilGafney.com, (Comment and I’ll add you)

Listen- Concord Baptist Church of Christ (Brooklyn), Intersectionality Matters with Kimberlé Crenshaw (Comment and I’ll add you)

Support- WomanPreach! Inc., The Gathering, (Womanists, drop your Venmo, PayPal etc to me, and I’ll add it)

Engage- Whiteness at Work Summer Series

Don’t even apply for jobs that you do not think should be held by a White man.

Apply this to all kinds of opportunities – scholarships, trips, fellowships, etc. 

When you turn down opportunities, suggest they not be given to another white man. Use your voice in that moment to advocate for change within the very system. Let them know you will be following up to see if they did it.

Refuse to be a part of White-only groups with benefits.

Seriously. I’m talking panels, revivals, conferences, leadership societies, etc.

Except if they are a privilege accountability intentional working group.

Sabotage the system.

I’m talking not cooperating with an itinerancy that gives you benefits in advancement.

I’m talking stepping down to make room for others, like Reddit founder Alexis Ohanion did.

I’m talking speaking up Every. Single. Time. that something is said that demeans, diminishes, and mocks those whose exclusion is the foundation for the opportunities your demographic hoards. 

I’m talking refusing to let White male colleagues get away with profiting off of the labor of Black men and women

I’m talking speaking up so that they don’t have to. You getting fired INSTEAD of them. 

I’m talking not simply figuring out how you can use your power for good, but seeking to actually destroy your disproportionate power with the ferocity of a dog that has spotted a piece of discarded burger on the street. 

I’m talking not using “I have to provide a good life for my children” as an excuse to snatch up the good opportunities that come your way. Ask yourself, what exactly do you mean by “a good life”? Changing this unjust world is how you provide a better life for those children. Refusing to bequeath to them the same unjust privilege you have enjoyed is how you provide a better life for those children.

I’m talking recognizing that the system will also use those very children that you, Man, “must provide for” as a justification for offering you the opportunities it denies to women and Queer folxs and Black folxs and Undocumented folxs and so many others. Do not let the system trick you in this way anymore. Do not let them leverage your children against you to make you compromise your morals, convictions, ideals, and calling. 

Let go of the need to understand and approve of the plan and the demands.

Learn instead to trust that those who have experienced injustice know exactly what they are doing. You do not need to give it your stamp of approval, because – remember – we need you, we just don’t need you there. We used to sing “Trust and Obey” in the pews of our churches. Try that instead. Trust and Obey. The rest of us have been doing it for millennia – take a turn on the dance floor.  

Put your body in the way of harm and injustice.

You’ve been watching me do this for years with such intensity that it has become muscle memory, the traumas survived feeling like they’ve woven themselves into the structure of my cells. If this small body can do it, you can too.

Remember that the point of any of this is not ever to re-establish yourself as the center, so be careful that you put your body on the line in order to protect the vulnerable and not in order to be the picture on the front page of the news. This takes so very much effort, strategy, accountability and mindfulness, because we still live in a system that if left on auto-pilot will recenter you again and again. You have to actively fight that tendency.

Put your body in the way. Put your career in the way. Put your future in the way. Put your wallet in the way. Put your access in the way. Put your everything in the way.

I encourage you – within systems of accountability – to come up with new and creative ways to take this even further.

The reality is, I’m a Queer woman in a perpetually vulnerable position, so my imagination may be somewhat limited because I have lived with only a partial measure of the full measure of power and privilege you posses. I’m sure that if you accept this invitation to new life, you will be able to come up with even more ways to divest, resist, and sabotage this system that has been built by the efforts of your foreparents, and upheld by your own participation in it. 

The system can only work if we participate. That is how it has survived this long. It is long past time to end it. 

 

Featured, Justice

The UMC in 2020: God Overrules Our Rules

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(On January 1, 2020 legislation went into effect that had passed by 53% at the United Methodist Church’s General Conference in February of 2019. This legislation – if obeyed – seeks to impose harsh penalties on those who stand with the LGBTQIA+ community, and drive LGBTIQIA+ clergy, like myself, out of the church.) 

“It is plain to me that the whole work of God called Methodism is an extraordinary dispensation of His providence. Therefore, I do not wonder if several things occur therein which do not fall under ordinary rules of discipline.” – John Wesley, 1771, Letter to Mary Bosanquet Fletcher

Every once in a while, when we have made gods of ourselves and set up our own words as idols, God has to step in and remind us who and whose we are, and who it is that calls us. God seems to prefer to do so by loving people we did not love, by calling people that we would not call, and by using people that we threw away. 

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” they asked of the colonized form of a middle eastern carpenter. The answer that made them so uncomfortable was ‘yes.’ Not only could good come from Nazareth, but God chose that place exactly because they did not expect – did not want – their Savior to be “one of those people.” Jesus entered the world in such an unexpected way that it frightened the powerful, humbled the proud, and disrupted systems of oppression. 

God likes to use the people we would not choose ourselves to remind us we are not God. 

John Wesley, failed missionary, was just such a person. 

Plagued by accusations of disruption and disobedience to the Order of the Church, John Wesley wrote to his brother Charles in 1739 to explain his resistance. “I have both an ordinary call and an extraordinary,” he wrote. The ordinary call, John explained, was his ordination, that moment the Bishop lays hands on our head and says, “Take thou authority.” The extraordinary call is what God commands us to do with our ordination. 

In John’s view, the ones who ordain are not the ones who call, and the ones who ordain are not the ones who have the final word on what we do with that ordination. 

The evidence of the extraordinary call is not an adherence to the Discipline, nor the approval of the Bishop, John explains, rather “God bears witness in an extraordinary manner, that my thus exercising my ordinary call is well pleasing in His sight.” 

It is God who calls. It is the Institution that ordains. Yet, it is God – once again – who determines how we are to live out that ordination. While the institution may affirm, honor and even credential our call, the call belongs to God. We must always be ready for that moment when God reminds us of that.

This moment in time, this tiny measure of history, is that moment for United Methodist clergy and laity all around the world. That moment when God is using LGBTQIA+ folxs, and the call God has placed on our lives, to remind us that God is God and we are not.  

We are faced with a choice, all who stand as leaders in the United Methodist Church in this moment. Will we hide in the ordinary, or accept the extraordinary call offered to us in this historic moment in the church? 

John Wesley, himself, never felt like he had much of a choice in the matter. From the beginning of the third rise of Methodism, in the year after John felt his heart “strangely warmed”, he was under constant critique from his colleagues. He was accused of disrupting the order of the church by allowing lay preachers, and later women preachers. He was accused of interfering with the ministry of other pastors, by preaching in the fields of their parishes when he was denied the pulpit.

John was accused of ‘dismissing church order,’ of disruption, of risking schism. Specifically, his Clergy Order accused John of breaking Article 23 of the Anglican Order, their Book of Discipline, which forbade preachers from being sent out without the institution’s authority. 

Frustrated, John wrote to his older brother Samuel, “What is the end of all ecclesiastical order? Is it not to bring souls from the power of Satan to God, and to build them up in his fear and love? Order, then, is so far valuable as it answers these ends.”

With his brother Charles, John could be more transparent than with Samuel, writing, 

“‘But,’ they say, ‘it is just that you submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.’ True; to every ordinance of man which is not contrary to the command of God. But if any man, bishop or other, ordain that I shall not do what God commands me to do, to submit to that ordinance would be to obey man rather than God.”

John Wesley, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Harriet Tubman and Jarena Lee, found that the way that we answer our call is more than pragmatic – it is also about the integrity in our relationship with God. If we are determined to obey God, we will from time to time be called to disobey man in both his governmental and religious authority. This is inevitable in a world where both our governmental and religious institutions are often tempted to place themselves on the throne.

We are living in just such a moment. A moment when the world seems upside down, because they want us to believe that we are disobedient and rebellious simply because we seek to be obedient to the call from God.

Mary Bosanquet Fletcher knew well this game that Institutions and powerful men play, when she wrote to Wesley in 1771 to plead with her friend to finally have a little backbone when it came to women’s leadership, to stand with them in their right to preach. She used his own words to argue that some of us have an extraordinary call, and we have no choice but to answer it. She held him accountable to give the same grace and flexibility with the Discipline to others that he had allowed for himself. 

Her words – and more importantly, her witness and her fruit – worked. He assented to the fact that she held a truthful claim to the same extraordinary call that he had claimed for himself. Women began to receive license to preach thereafter. 

This is what has always been powerful about our movement – that a group of people so intense and disciplined and focused on Scripture and Tradition, could also be so open to our understanding being transformed by Reason and Experience. 

It was our Order that organized us, but it was Grace that transformed us. It is our Discipline that informs us, but it is the Spirit that guides us. Let us not prioritize the former over the latter.

Woe be to those who make an idol of their own words. Woe be to those who abandon the fruit of the spirit that is self-control, in order to seek control of others. 

Our desire for understanding and control – our desire to be like God in our mind – has plagued us since the beginning, clashing with God’s desire for us to be like God in our hearts. Our lust for order and power clashing with God’s compassion and grace.

Focusing on what LOOKS like a speck in another’s eye, we fail to remove the log out of our own eye in order to see them clearly in all their glory.

Like James and John, men struggle for the seat at the top, bickering like apostles over the seats at the left and right hand of the throne. Even John Wesley struggled with Whitefield, struggled with Asbury, struggled with Garrison, struggled with his brothers Charles and Samuel, seeking to protect the power and control and order that had been accumulated. 

We have always been a stumbling, bumbling crew, that require signs and wonders to believe. That demand that those God has chosen will let us kill them before we will trust their call.

I have stood at the end of a gun, at the edge of a knife, before. The gun-cocking on computer screens did not scare me out of my calling. Warnings to “Go back to the church of Satan” did not make me budge. I know what it is to have my ordinary call interrupted by an extraordinary one. I know what it is to face fear and refuse to give it the final word. 

I have stood on sacred grounds with these Queer feet; held the Holy Book and broken the Bread with these Queer hands; proclaimed the timeless Gospel with this Queer mouth. And God has rendered my witness irrefutable. 

In the words of John Wesley, “God bears witness in an extraordinary manner, that my thus exercising my ordinary call is well pleasing in His sight.”

All throughout the world there are members of our LGBTQIA+ community – clergy and laity – living out these extraordinary calls, with great faithfulness and deep sacrifice and profound courage.

The United Methodist Church is made up of many more people who will have to make the choice between protecting their own ordinary call – their ordination and leadership positions – and listening for and yielding to an extraordinary call that is summoning us out of our stable, secure place. Do you hear it?

All of our careers, they have been telling us that it was on our shoulders to save this Institution. What would happen if we choose to save the church instead?

Will you be a true Methodist? Will you rebel, resist, disobey unjust laws? Reject stability and professional advancement when it gets in the way of God’s call? Read, write, and create vociferously? Preach the Gospel with courage and compassion? Care about the health of people’s bodies like you do their minds and souls? Reach out constantly and stay connected? Empower people no one has empowered before?

Will we look threats and cruelty square in the eye and resist harm together? Will we declare that all belong?

Will you refuse to stand under the shelter of a mutilated tree if these LGBTQIA+ limbs are severed?

We build towers. We build walls. We make rules. But God tumbles towers, God tears down walls, and God most certainly overrules our rules.

“But what if a bishop forbids this? … God being my helper, I will obey Him still: and if I suffer for it, His will be done.” -John Wesley, 1739, Letter to Charles Wesley

 

Looking for resources to aid in resisting? Check out the resources for individuals and communities at #ResistHarm. Look into the efforts at All Belong. Find liturgy and add your support to the work of enfleshed. Find resources specific to your context at RMNetwork. Heard about something? Suggest other ideas in the comments section below!!

 

Featured, Justice, Listening

Power Exists to be Given Away – Reminders from Movement Living

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Power exists to be given away. 

The reminder of this came as I listened to the Rev. Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson preach at the historic Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn via podcast last week, in a sermon entitled “Another World.” I hit pause when I heard her words, “It’s that exousia power that we share with one another, that gets bigger and stronger and bolder the more we pass it on to one another. You would be dangerous if you ever understood how powerful you are.”

To know this in your bones is to have experienced that dangerous power that erupts when courage, compassion and community collide into a force that threatens Empire. To know this is to have experienced the transformation that is only possible through a community that relies on one another. To know this is to have seen how power can multiply when we hold it loosely and share it liberally.

Power was meant to be given, to be received, to be shared – not to be taken. 

It was a human hand, reaching for a piece of fruit, that was the first power grab. Seeking to take what was neither given nor offered. Interrupting the flow of power that knows its source only in God. Knowledge is power they say, scientia potestas est, and in reaching for it, the first humans sought to take what was not offered, to undermine and supplant the role of God as giver and install themselves – ourselves – in the role of taker.

To serve an omnipotent God is to serve a God who possesses all power, from whom all power is derived, to whom all power will return. To serve an omnipotent God is to hold loosely the power that is given to us, and discern wisely how we might best give and share it with others. In so doing, we move as we were intended to do within that limitless ocean flow, sending out our waves and anticipating their return. The ebb and flow of shared power connecting us to God and to one another. 

When we fail to grasp this, we grab and tumble and struggle for power, driven by fear, striving not to slip beneath the waves.

Power, whenever grasped too tightly, held too closely, guarded, hoarded, defended exists within that tradition. We fear power, and we fear losing it. We know something is amiss, just as the first people did when they hid in fear and shame. 

Knowledge, being one of the many forms that power takes – when hoarded and guarded from the community – continues to exist as that fruit ripped from the tree, growing rotten in our hand. A divider rather than a unifier. A rift between us and God, between us and Creation, between us and one another.

Even children, in their innocence, know the damage that this does. Even they feel this truth as they sing their schoolyard rhymes, “Secrets, secrets are no fun. Secrets, secrets hurt someone.”

Power exists to be given away. In its giving and its receiving, love is made manifest, and we are bound to God and one another. 

Sitting with twelve students around a fire on an overlook at the top of Mount Lemmon this weekend, the sounds of various conversations mingled together until one student asked me, “What do Methodists teach about hell?” All conversations stopped, as silence fell immediately. I answered, shared my thoughts, then said, “What do you think?” What followed was more than two hours of what many would later describe as the most significant spiritual conversation of their life. All because they were invited into the conversation as people with knowledge, voice and power. All because power was shared and not asserted. My power and spiritual authority in the group was not diminished, even when opinions differed; it was strengthened. We all were strengthened. Power grew because it was shared.  

It is easier for me to talk about campfires and baking cakes than it is to talk about my life’s work in advocacy. Most people would know my work, but do not know my name; that has been a result of great intentionality and a particular orientation towards power that neither seeks it nor flees from it, but rather disperses it. 

Power is not something we can flee from or avoid or reject, because we do still live in a patriarchal world that inflicts violence and oppression. We do still have a responsibility to work together to diminish that harm. 

For instance, I have spent the past 20 years watching young men get paid more, promoted more, heard more. I have watched them nonchalantly step in and fill the spaces that I have tried to step back to leave for others, blissfully unaware that the default in this life is injustice and inequality and it is only through intentionality that we create a different world. To be silent about this, would be to adopt the position of accomplice in condoning the taking of power that our culture encourages. That is not the sharing of power to which I refer. 

How then do we live in this world that seeks to crush the vulnerable? We live by different rules. We live as followers of the one who emptied godself of power, not the one who grabbed for the fruit, the knowledge, the power. We live by building another kind of power, serving another Kin-dom. We cannot set ourselves free by transitioning the power from their hands to ours. We must create a new kind of power, a new way of living. 

When Dr. Janet Wolf brought me to the Children’s Defense Fund’s Samuel Dewitt Proctor Institute this past summer, I came weary and desperate to be in beloved community, to saturate myself in this different way of living with like-minded people. Yet, I did not know that what I really needed to see was exactly what I found in Janet – the image of what this life looks like in the long term. There have been so many risks I’ve taken in this journey towards justice, so many moments that many feared I would not survive, that it has been hard for me to envision the longterm. Yet, she and others are living it and sharing it and inviting others to experience it – this beautiful power, flowing rather than contained.

This orientation towards power is a lifestyle. It is not the social viewpoints or convictions that must change in order to truly set us free. It is the way we relate to power altogether.

Whereas the first humans grasped for power that was not offered to them, our true guide, Jesus Christ, emptied himself of power – kenosis. He lived a very human life and was tempted in very human ways. He was tempted three times: to assert his power, to demonstrate his power, and lastly to seek more power. In all three instances, while he was tempted in the wilderness, his response was to resist the temptation, to reject an orientation toward power that would have created a distance within the divine and between the divine and us. He was focused and sacrificial in creating a different model for us. 

This is why it is so important that we follow that example that has been set for us. It would be easy to say, “Why should we try this again? People have been trying to live this way for millennia, and injustice still exists.” Yes, true. And now it is our turn, our chapter, our moment to carry this particular orientation towards power forward, trusting the Messenger, the Creator, the Guide.

It is easy to point to the dangers inherent in trying to live as creators and not controllers. It is easy to see the way that fear tugs on our attention, turning our head aside from the beauty that God holds for us. 

It is therefore incumbent to say clearly what a generous orientation towards power is and is not. 

It is not to surrender to violent forces. It is to confront them.

It is not to surrender the vulnerable. It is to center them.

It is not to trade power in alliances and exchanges; giving the appearance of sharing power, while truly hoarding it for ourselves. Trading it rather than releasing it. Making a market of what God has given to us.

Rather, it is to acknowledge the Source of power, its ebb and flow, and that it is only passing through us as it flows forward to connect us to someone new. 

It is to ask, What do you think? – sharing the task of theological creation, both intellectually and practically. 

In 2015, when Sandra Bland died in a jail in Texas, I was a speaker and writer living forty minutes away. Four hours before she was arrested on July 10, 2015, I had just submitted the first chapter of my first book, a writing journey that had begun years before in another country. Sandra was a Methodist woman with a powerful voice, who also had many powerful things to say – and in the hours and days following her death I listened as she said them in the vlogs she made in the six months before her death. Beyond all the work that we did to make sure that her death was not erased, there was a more personal commitment that I made to her than simply to sit vigil in rural Texas for the months that followed her death and caused me to face the possibility of my own. The commitment was that wherever my voice was heard, her voice would be heard. That meant that every microphone that heard my voice, heard her voice – as I held the speaker of my phone up to the microphone. Whether a pulpit, a conference, or a protest – if I had the mic, then she had the mic. She spoke in the midst of sermons, at a planning meeting for the World Methodist Conference, at trainings for the Forum for Theological Exploration, and City Council Meetings. It wasn’t always easy, it wasn’t always welcome – but it was always just, and it was always necessary. In the sharing of power, in the way it flowed, something shifted, something changed. Praise be to the Source of all Power that shares with us that we might share with others. 

Power exists to be given away. 

If this seems impractical, and out of touch with the needs of institutional survival, then we must wonder what kind of power do we seek? What kind of community are we building? What kind of god do we serve? 

“I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.” 

-Toni Morrison 

Featured, Justice

Governmental & Catholic Powers Partner to Force Will on Tucson Community

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“So your plan is to do everything through one site, utilizing Catholic Community Services and your location at the jail, and not include any of the other faith communities that have been caring for immigrants because it is easiest for you?” County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry was asked at the Humanitarian Crisis Roundtable that met on Monday, July 15th.

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Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry
Screen Shot 2019-07-18 at 9.55.28 AM
Bishop Weisenburger of the Tucson Diocese

 

“Yes,” was his simple answer, confirming that this was not merely a decision to move guests from the Monastery to the Juvenile Jail, but further a decision to seek to end other faith communities hosting guests. It was a decision that had been made by Bishop Weisenburger, and the undisclosed members of his committee, without consulting the greater network of hosting sites. In a letter to the County on July 3rd, Bishop Weisenberger had conveyed the idea that the faith community in Tucson was not able to handle the work of continuing to host guests and needed the government to step in and help.

Engaging in a collegial and collaborative manner by engaging the input of colleagues doing the same work, rather than given the appearance of speaking for the faith community as a whole, would have been a simple thing to do because the mechanisms had already been being put in place.

Several months before, the Southern Arizona Border Care Network met for the first time on December 6, 2018, to dream of creating a community of transparency, support, and collaboration. They dreamt of shifting the culture of humanitarian aid to center immigrant voices, knowing how often decisions were made in a way that did not include directly impacted people. Little did they know how soon those dreams of collaboration would be shattered as a display of institutional power would assert itself over the community and decree that the families they aided would be moved to cells within the Juvenile Jail complex.

As people filed into the small chapel off of the sanctuary of St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church that first day, the number kept growing and growing and more and more chairs were pulled into the circle. In a few seats by the door were a cluster of Unitarian Universalists; over on the far side of the room were clergy who were immigrants from Mexico themselves, serving and offering hospitality in Nogales, Tucson, etc. In the room, there were people who knew each other well, and people who were just meeting for the first time.

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Rev. Dr. Dottie Escobedo-Frank assists with intake at The Inn in 2017.

 

Intentionality had been taken in the planning of the meeting, with an awareness of the faith community’s propensity to call upon white clergy to lead and speak. Therefore, a Latina woman who had grown up on the border in Nogales, who had her roots dug deep into the sand of the Sonoran desert, was chosen to lead the conversation. The Rev. Dr. Dottie Escobedo-Frank was deeply familiar with the work of providing hospitality to asylum seeking families after having served as the Chair of the Board of The Inn Project since 2016, during which time over 10,000 courageous people had walked through its doors. 

The Rev. Dr. Dottie Escobedo-Frank led the meeting in a gentle, but intentional way, that drew in the voices of immigrant clergy and centered their stories. It felt like something different was happening. It felt like there was a glow in the air. It felt like a family curse had been broken, as the voices of pastors who were immigrants themselves found themselves heard in a new way. People leaned into the warmth of the moment and stood for long minutes chatting afterwards at the door. Women of color – accustomed to being ignored in these kinds of meetings – talked about the confidence and inspiration that Dottie’s leadership and centering of them had awakened. The truth that they mattered and that their voices mattered was unapologetically proclaimed in that space.

In the meetings that followed, stories would be shared, a narrative and invitation of hospitality would be written, and an atmosphere of trust and transparency would be built and assumed.

In March 2019, the group would approve a statement to be released to the community that would detail the militarization we experience in Southern Arizona, the ministry of hospitality on the border, and the need for support from others. Groups signing on as members of the Southern Arizona Border Care Network would include: The Inn, Casa Alitas, Casa Mariposa, El Mesías United Methodist Church, First Christian Church, Justice for Our Neighbors, Keep Tucson Together, Mariposas Sin Fronteras, Menlo Park United Methodist Church, Mountain Vista Unitarian Universalist, Southern Arizona Sanctuary Coalition, Southside Presbyterian Church, St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church, St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist Justice Arizona Network, Borderlands Unitarian Universalist. 

One line from the narrative that they signed was, “An increased number of asylees are being detained in mostly for-profit prison-like facilities. They are not given legal options. They are herded through our legal system without due process. Children are put in detention with parents, as well as unaccompanied minors being detained in prison-like tent facilities. We are treating the immigrant among us as criminals, instead of asylees or refugees or neighbors.” 

The group would meet again on May 2nd to discuss how to support one another and reach out further into the community.

A couple days later on May 4th, however, the first cracks in the veneer of transparency would appear when a press conference would be held by the City to begin to frame the narrative in Tucson in a very different way. The new narrative centered the work of only one of the members of the Southern Arizona Border Care Network in a way that erased the work of the others and the community of trust that they were trying to build. 

This member, Casa Alitas, had expanded their capacity a few months earlier and were seeking community support in maintaining the numbers they were serving.

In the months that followed, the narrative would be continually strengthened that all other sites providing hospitality in Tucson were small, temporary satellite sites of Casa Alitas, solidifying power, in the perception of the government and the public, in the hands of one group. This appearance of dominance would give the Catholic Community Services that oversaw the work of Casa Alitas, and specifically the Catholic Bishop, sole negotiating power with the County over the fate of asylum seeking families. 

Conversations would happen behind the scenes, amongst the stakeholders that Bishop Weisenberger chose to include, about what would happen to the families. By speaking of a “committee of faith leaders” making the decision, it would give the impression that others doing the work were included in making the decision. Yet, despite the fact that Casa Alitas had signed on as a member of the Southern Arizona Border Care Network, key members of that community would not be invited to the table, nor would it be made clear and transparent who was. An agreement would be made privately between the County Government and the Catholic Bishop to relocate asylum seeking families to cells in the Pima County Juvenile Justice Complex, then shared afterwards with the community. 

The news was shared with the public in a news article on July 8th, with the acknowledgement that it would create dissension and divisions in the community, “Kozachik concedes that putting the families inside the Pima County Juvenile Justice Complex doesn’t look good at first glance, but said it should not feel like asylum seekers are being kept in custody.”

Immediately there was an outcry from many Women of Color in Tucson, most notably prison policy expert, Tiera Rainey, who was well schooled on the effect that incarceration atmospheres have on individuals. In contrast to how Women of Color were treated at that first Southern Arizona Border Care Network meeting six months before, their voices were dismissed by those forcing the plan forward.

According to the Tucson Sentinal, Councilman Kozachik said, ”Look they’re well-intentioned, but we’re not incarcerating Guatemalans,” he said. “I think people when they see the changes, they’ll be on board,” he said, adding that the county was picking up costs for the facility, including maintenance, food prep and laundry costs.”

And Catholic Community Services Director, Teresa Cavendish said, “Right now we’re having our hands tied, while work that we’ve been doing for five years is being second-guessed by people who don’t do this work.”

The community was told to just trust the government and the Catholic Church, without being given a reason to do so. We were thrust backwards into the atmosphere where the white men with power make the decisions, and the rest of the community “trusts” that they know best. The very definition of paternalism. We remembered those who have not experienced incarceration themselves may have a hard time recognizing it when they see it. 

In reality, the community had actually been given a very clear reason not to “just trust” as the Government and Catholic Community Services had partnered with the media in creating a narrative that was inaccurate and that intentionally and strategically erased the work of their partners in order to position the Catholic Bishop as the sole person to make the decision about what to do with asylum seekers, and to position Catholic Community Services as the sole controller of spaces for asylum seekers in Tucson.

The work of the Latina woman who had been laboring to organize the Southern Arizona Border Care Network was erased and strategically undermined.

The voices of Women of Color like Tiera Rainey were demeaned and dismissed, by decision makers, by the media, and by community members that insisted we should “just trust.”

The meeting to approve the plan was moved up from August to July 22 in order to accomplish the power play before the movement resisting it could gain traction, and before community members and faith leaders had a chance to talk.

According to the Tucson Sentinal, Councilman Kozachik threatened, “If this falls off the rails,” because of objections, “(opponents) own the street release option, if we don’t get this facility.”

Intimidation flourished. Institutional authority took precedence over expertise and experience. The community floundered under the sense of manipulative urgency that was being thrust upon them. The desire for power, control and funds were prioritized over the unity and well-being of the Tucson community.

Federal funds could be used to reinvigorate County facilities, with the Catholic Church sharing credit with the government. It was a win for decision makers, but a loss for those they had excluded from the table.

What will it cost our soul to insist that a jail cell is a dorm room? What did it cost those that called a tent city a summer camp just a year ago? 

Voice your concern. Sign the petition now: http://chng.it/7ChGrbsy

Community, Justice, Listening

When Celibacy Conflicts With Faithfulness

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Most young clergywomen are familiar with the predictable conversation that takes place when people encounter us for the first time in the wild. Scrunching up their face in puzzlement at my clergy collar, the woman cutting my hair, or the man ringing up my groceries will almost inevitably ask, “So can you get married?”

In earlier years my answer always came easily, “Of course I can get married! No, I’m not a nun.” In more recent times, however, I have found the answer does not come as readily. “Technically…” has become my cryptic reply.

Having come out as Queer clergy a few months ago, I have been wrestling with what that word “technically” means to me. It means that I can get married – technically – but not in a way that would be life-giving for me, since the only marriage that my denomination condones – technically – would be if I were to marry a man. In a few days in St. Louis, many people that know and love me will have the ability to vote on whether that technicality will change. What a strange circumstance, that there are people that I have lived with and worked with that will be able with the push of a button to decide something so important to me. Some of them plan to vote to set me free, and some of them plan to vote to end my career by requiring me to reject who I am to continue in it. Emotionally, and practically, it is a strange power for people I love to have over me, like holding the keys to a medieval chastity belt.

A heavy weight has sat on my chest every time I try to write about this. Since coming out, I have observed that some who know me would like to make this reality easier for themselves by choosing to think of me as “not like those other Queer people” or somehow better than my Queer family because I’m not in a relationship, and am therefore not “practicing.” It seems easier to tell themselves and others that I am the one choosing celibacy, than it is to talk to me about it and understand how I feel. 

While it is uncomfortable for me to talk about this as well, I do not want to be used as an easy out by anyone either. I need to speak my truth and my reality.

So, let us be accurate. I am celibate. This does not mean I have a call to celibacy. This does not mean I have the “gift of celibacy.” If someone tells you that, then it means they have not loved me enough to talk to me about it. This is simply my reality. I am celibate. Full stop. And I wish I wasn’t.

It bears noting that it has been a difficult year for women who grew up in the purity culture. Joshua Harris expressing his remorse over his book – that was treated as evangelical doctrine – does not lessen the trauma it caused. 

It has also been a difficult month for women with vows of celibacy. The Pope expressing his remorse that nuns have been being used as sex slaves by some priests and Bishops does not lessen the trauma caused by those who feel betrayed by their vows and their institution. 

It will be a difficult week for queer clergy ordained in the United Methodist Church. The expressions of sympathy from church leadership will not lesson the trauma that is about to be caused as the intimate aspects of our lives will be casual discussion for our global colleagues, as they are discussed right in front of us as though we are not in the room.

Here I sit. Occupying all three of these realities. This is no coincidence. 

How heavy the task of finding the words to say about my own life, when for others it is so easy to speak of us. It is so easy to assume things about Queer clergy. The word Queer somehow makes people think they have permission to assign all kinds of assumptions onto you that they would feel shame ridden to have cross their mind about their heterosexual colleagues. Somehow logic does not prevail, and they assign judgment to the object of their imagination rather than to their own imagination itself.  How comfortable sits the man with power and hubris, speaking with ease about things which he will never experience, know or understand. 

This vow of celibacy, shared by those nuns, their abusive priests, and I, was imposed upon us for the purpose of institutional preservation, then camouflaged successfully over the centuries and decades by a rationalization built upon a false equivalency between being called to the priesthood and being called to celibacy. 

Let us break this down. 

Somehow the church survived the first 1000 years of its history without this connection between celibacy and the priesthood. Yes, it certainly appeared here and there, and now and then, but never as a comprehensive and compulsory requirement. It was not until the First Lateran Council in 1123 A.D., in a selective and non-ecumenical gathering, that celibacy was decreed as a comprehensive commitment for priests, rather than the occasional and geographical ways it had sprouted up from time to time. The church, frustrated with fighting over inheritances with the children of priests, was eager to rid itself of the complications and costs that accompanied a priest who had wives and children. Thus, it was decreed in Canon 7:

We absolutely forbid priests, deacons or subdeacons to live with concubines and wives, and to cohabit with other women, except those whom the council of Nicaea permitted to dwell with them solely on account of necessity, namely a mother, sister, paternal or maternal aunt, or other such persons, about whom no suspicion could justly arise

The fact that protecting the finances of the church was the crisis of the moment was further emphasized in the next line, Canon 8 of the First Lateran Council, which stated that laypeople, regardless of “how religious they may be,” may not carry out church business because they may “arrogate to himself the disposition or donation.” In other words, the church feared laypeople getting their hands on those tithes and offerings, just as they feared the families of priests getting their hands on church resources in Canon 7. 

Therefore, we found ourselves a thousand years into the history of the church, compelling all people who were called to devote their lives to God, to also devote their lives to celibacy. We placed upon them the requirement to suppress something that was good, godly, and beautiful about themselves, in order to be permitted to answer their call to serve the church. 

This requirement of celibacy for the priesthood did not come from God, however, and was not rooted in scripture. It was a decision made by man. Requiring something so huge from people as the price for “letting them answer their call” did great damage to the relationship between God and those called to serve God. It created a false barrier in the communication between God and those God called. It required them to give up something that God had not called them to give up, but that the church needed them to give up for financial reasons.

This is abuse. Abuse of the trust that people place in the church. 

In time this became evident to some. The many traditions that arose as a result of the Reformation permitted their priests to marry. Vows and expectations shifted, and with time the priesthood in these other traditions even came to include women as well as men. 

The latest chapter of this came in 1983, when I was only three months old. At that time, my own tradition, the United Methodist Church was concerned for their institutional preservation, as the Roman Catholic Church had been at the First Lateran Council. 

As Bishop Jack Tuell would later give testimony:

“It’s February 1983, a little over 20 years ago.  I am meeting in an airport in Albuquerque with two other United Methodist bishops and an executive of the Division of Ordained  Ministry out of Nashville. We are doing preliminary work on legislation for the 1984 General Conference. Our subject matter was ordained ministry. We worked on many aspects of the subject. But a particular concern being raised was: “How do we screen out homosexual persons from becoming ordained ministers?”   

I proposed a seven-word addition to the list of things to which candidates for ministry must commit: “Fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness.”…
Now why did we do that?  You would think that on as important a matter as that we might look to Wesley’s guidelines of discernment: that is, scripture, tradition, experience and reason.  But I’m here to tell you that we did not look at the scriptures; we never mentioned tradition; we did not refer to experience, and reason.  It was almost absent from our discussion. Instead of those four classic words guiding our conversation, we were unconsciously guided by two other words: institutional protection.”

In other words, men in my denomination made the choice, for the purposes of institutional protection, to avoid the whole “gay conversation” by taking advantage of the law of the land, and the fact that it was not legal for gay folks to get married. By inserting a phrase “celibacy in singleness” into the ordination vows, they could ensure that those who could not legally be married would have to remain lifelong celibates, in order for the church to avoid an authentic engagement with them and a loving conversation about their thoughts, experiences, identities, and realities. 

I was born and baptized into a church that did not include that in the vow. Yet, 28 years later, it would be a vow that I would take when I answered my call to ordination. At the time, I believed the vow to be a part of the history of the church, I did not know it had been inserted in my lifetime. At the time, I had not embraced my queerness, and I had no idea how that vow was strategically created to bind me. 

For the years that followed, there was something that I could not put my finger on that lay between God and I. It was not until recently that I would find out what it was: this vow that God did not require of me, that man forced upon me as the price that I had to pay for others to gain the ability to avoid the loving conversation.

God, on the other hand, has never avoided the loving conversations with me. I felt the same good-humored embrace of the Spirit when I accepted my Queerness as I had when I accepted my call, “Welcome, it took you long enough.”

We can debate the content of the vow, whether it is reasonable or not, but that is a straw man, a distraction. Why those words are there matters. As a person who strives to live with integrity, the “why” always matters to me. The intention behind putting those words in my mouth matters to me. Both in the case of the Lateran Council, and in the case of the General Conference of 1984, institutional preservation was what was at stake, and not spiritual integrity. That is a betrayal. 

There have always been people on all ends of the sexuality spectrum, both heterosexuals and members of the LGBTQ+ community, who have recognized that this vow was a result of church politics and not sound exegesis. There have always been Queer clergy who have followed God’s calling into the relationships that God intended for them.

I admire them, and I aspire to have their courage to follow God with boldness.

To make a person choose between two callings God has placed on their life – one to be ordained and the other to be in loving relationship – is spiritual abuse. It is meddling in an area where only the Spirit has a say. It is prioritization of the institution over the community of faith. 

I am Queer. I am celibate, but I will likely not always be. I have never feared anything so much as I fear being outside of the will of God. So, if God calls me into relationship, I will obey. That is the integrity and courage that I have seen from my colleagues like Mary and Susan, Kimberly and Sofia, Bailey and Kelli. That is the integrity and courage that I want to have. I don’t want to hide any longer behind my work, behind my collar, or behind my vows.

 

Featured, Global, Justice

Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother

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“You are the answer to our prayers,” Madre Irene said in delighted surprise as we entered the quiet church yard. She had just finished breakfast with her fellow sister in the Order of Mary the Sorrowful Mother, when we came through the gates of Cristo Rey. The two nuns had been discussing the children in the tent city, within just a stone’s throw of their town. They had been struggling to think of what they could do. In this quiet town, on the Mexico side of the border, they could see and hear the children play in the mornings through the slats of the wall, with helicopters flying overhead to watch them. Yet, while they could hear them, and they could see them, still it seemed there was nothing they could do. 

“We had decided that all we could do was pray, and then I walked outside, and here you were!” she informed us. 

For months in Tucson, Free the Children had thought and planned and worked. We raised money, and bailed a father out of detention. We raised awareness, but we wanted to do more. Finally one of the mothers in the room, Carolina, simply insisted, “Why don’t we go there? Why don’t we see what we can do?” Now, here we stood, before the answer to our prayers, only to discover that we were the answer to theirs as well. 

When the tent city had opened at Tornillo in June, as housing for immigrant children separated from their parents, the tents had been set up a short distance from the border wall. They were put together on federal property, exempt from state laws regarding children, at the Tornillo/Guadelupe Port of Entry between – on the Mexico side – the State of Chihuahua, and – on  the United States side – the State of Texas. As the statements that the tent city would close constantly transformed into falsehoods, the cluster of tents itself transformed into a militarized town that dwarfed the population of Caseta, the Mexican town. As the tent city sprawled outward, closer and closer to the border wall, it also came closer and closer to the people on the other side of the wall, making it impossible for them to ignore. Their hearts became deeply grieved by the constant sight and sounds of children imprisoned between fences, guards and the border wall. 

By the time, we walked through the gates of Cristo Rey Catholic Church in Caseta, it had been four months since I had first spotted their spires. Sitting at the gate to the tent city throughout the month of June, I had spotted the distinctive twin steeples of the church and felt comforted by their presence. I hoped the illusion of watchful eyes, that the twin arches of the steeple created, would be comforting to the children as well. I dreamed about what it would be like to be able to send a more direct message, a message that they knew was for them. We had tried, from the US side, to do so with a balloon, and ended up with a vigilante sticking a gun in our faces. At the time, in June, the promises that the tent city would close seemed so certain, that it did not seem worthwhile to risk lives to pursue it any further.

Yet, the tent city did not go away, and neither did the desire amongst all those around it to let the kids know that they were supported and loved. Over the months, the tent city transformed from a temporary crisis intervention space for separated kids, to a long term incarceration facility for all manner of kids who had been classified as unaccompanied minors. As the classification of kids expanded, so did the numbers, from hundreds to thousands, until the sounds of their play vibrated the border wall and echoed over to the town of Caseta. 

The Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, standing and watching the children from across the wall, could not have been more aptly named. Where were all the sorrowful mothers of these children scattered? How many were back home in the countries from which they had journeyed? How many of them were waiting somewhere in Topeka or Boston or Durham, unable to claim their children because it would ensure their own deportation? How many of them had been deported and were unable to communicate? 

Where were the many sorrowful mothers in whose place these Sisters now stood? 

Where were the many sorrowful mothers whose grief mirrored the original, Mary, who watched her wandering son arrested, criminalized and bound? 

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After greeting us in the courtyard of Cristo Rey, Mother Irene invited us all into her living room: Mari, Summer, Carolina, Becky, Juan, Marla and I. She sat us down and began by ascertaining which of us was baptized, and more significantly which of us was baptized en la Iglesia Catolica. She was not disappointed to discover a few Catholic saints among us. We talked about the kids, and what we could do to bring hope to them. We told her about the dreams of being able to let them know they were not alone, “No estan solos,” the message that was to have been hung from the original balloon. She ushered us over to the church when the service was to start, and we were able to join the mourners at the morning’s funeral. 

It was hard to leave when the time came to return to Arizona. Mother Irene took Carolina’s head in her hands gently and prayed a blessing over her, and then over all of us. The surreal and sacred time that we had shared with the Sisters was hard to release. Yet, they assured us – and we assured them – that it was only the beginning. We would return with a banner, with a message for the kids. They would hang it from their steeple so that if any kids might be able to see it, they would know that they were not alone – that God, the Church, and the people of Caseta were with them. 

Over the next couple weeks, we communicated with our new friends, this sacred friendship giving birth to a profound mission of hope. The Sisters decided on a message that would be a little more direct. Rather than “No estan solos” – you are not alone – they preferred, “Liberen a los niños” – Free the children. This was not the time for subtlety. People were suffering. Mothers were suffering. Children were suffering. The Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother had spent decades inhabiting lives of contemplation upon that sorrow, and service in response to that sorrow. Who better than they to know what to do and what to say, in response to sorrow and injustice? 

As soon as was humanly possible, we returned. Piling into a minivan, we embarked once again in this journey of friendship, across state lines and border walls to Cristo Rey. Arriving, a group of people from the town had joined the Sisters in gathering to greet us and to make it known that Caseta supported this mission of mercy that the Sisters were pursuing. Members of Cristo Rey stood in the shadow of its steeples to make sure that their would be no impediments to the task. They explained that they were fed up, that they were tired of watching the kids imprisoned, that it was the right thing to do and they were the right people to do it. They wanted to send a message of hope and unwavering support. 

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Unfurling the banner, the Sisters smiled in approval and fetched a smaller matching banner that they had printed as well. We would take it to Joshua, who was their watchful mirror, keep vigilant watch on the US side of the wall. 

Climbing the steeples on ladders, the men of the town hoisted the banner into place, suspended between the two towers that pointed skyward. The Sisters stood proudly looking up at the banner, watching as their prayer took the shape of action, and their compassion took the shape of courage. 

Driving away from Caseta was even harder the second time than it had been the first. We had broken bread together, and heard more of one another’s stories. The Sisters had sung happy birthday to me as we walked through the streets of the town where Madre Irene had lived since before I was born. There was a sort of peace in knowing that the kids in this tent city were cradled gently in loving watchfulness between Joshua on the US side, and Madre Irene on the Mexico side. And now, thanks to their banner, we could pray that they would know it too.

 

 

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Justice, Listening

Tents, Kids, Money & God

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After the weeks I spent sitting at the gate of the tent city for kids in Tornillo, Texas, I realized I was having a hard time seeing the forest for the trees. I texted friends asking them to give me the big picture. Accustomed to trench work, to being close to the ground, I often see the things no one else sees, while at the same time missing the things everyone else is seeing.  

One of the biggest things that was weighing on me was that while offering continual observations from the ground, and listening to firsthand accounts from inside, I had done little to look into the faith-based organization that was running the tent city, Baptist Child and Family Services. That is why I was so grateful when University of Arizona professor, Dr. Elizabeth Jaeger, offered to begin the research into BCFS. Using her research as a starting point, I have attempted to reflect upon what is a faithful response to what we are seeing.

My mind has been particularly ill at ease, because time and again we have been given a date that Baptist Children and Family Services planned to end their involvement in Tornillo and shut down the tent city they were running for the United States Government. Yet, whenever the date drew close, it was extended, and it felt that promises were broken. It began to feel familiar; delay tactics in Texas are one thing I know well. Yet, why did BCFS stay involved? They were supposed to be crisis responders, making a temporary response to a momentary crisis created by family separations. 

It is now four months later and the kids are still there. Permanent structures have been constructed in addition to the tents. The timeline is now dragging on through the end of 2018. 

The initial crisis that BCFS was responding to, the zero-tolerance policy and consequent large numbers of children separated from their parents, has been expanded. Rather than working to reunify the families and children and then shut down, the vision of the tent city has grown to include unaccompanied minors of other forms. The facility has constantly expanded rather than contracted, leading up to the event that returned it to the public eye: the mass movement of kids, during the darkness of night, from shelters around the country to Tornillo. Capacity has been expanded to house close to 4,000 kids from the original 200. Bodies will have to be conscripted to fill those spots. An industry is  being created.

As projected date of closure after projected date of closure has passed, one begins to wonder whether the situation that Baptist Child and Family Services find themselves in is similar to the quandary that Maria Hinojosa exposed in her two part interview with Juan Sanchez, the CEO of Southwest Key. In their conversation, Hinojosa draws out the economic and financial considerations that Juan Sanchez feels he must consider when lining up what may be best for the kids against the financial survival of an institution he has built.

Sometimes we start out with the best of intentions… but then there are salaries to be paid. 

Finances

The CEO of Baptist Children and Family Services, Kevin Dunnin, for example, received a salary of $450,000 in 2013 (while the average salary for non-profit CEOs is closer to $285,000).

According to CNN, in June, a week after Tornillo opened, BCFS was expected to receive $127,000,000 from the US Government during the fiscal year. Since that first week, the number appears to have skyrocketed to between $428,569,971 and $441,234,738 (depending on whether you go by Issue Date Fiscal Year or Funding Fiscal Year respectively) according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. That is a lot of money, a lot of salaries. All relying on the continued imprisonment of children. All relying on the Administration’s policy of creating consequences in order to discourage sponsors from claiming children.

Beware the creation of an industry.

tornillo graph

(Grants made to BCFS by US Gov. Source: Department of Health and Human Services)

Transparency and Accountability

This leads us to some very important questions. First, the question of transparency and accountability. According to a 2014 article, concerns have been raised in the past to the Department of Health and Human Services about the lack of transparency exhibited by BCFS. If you were to look at their website, perhaps as a potential donor, you will not see any mention of the unaccompanied minor facilities, that presumably make up a good percentage of their income. While we can assume that running a tent city has not always been the history of BCFS, which began as an orphanage in Texas, that is the history that it is writing right now.

With each day that passes, and each child that spends another week or month in the desolation of Tornillo, we are normalizing the imprisonment of innocent children. With each person that signs a non-disclosure agreement to enter, and exits carrying the warm impression intentionally created for them and compassion for those that work there, normalization is carried back to the communities they inhabit.

How soon we forget our original horror.

When you open the website for BCFS, it opens with an image of a young blonde woman, and the words “Empowering Youth Through Education.” However, until a new press release was issued this week saying that children at Tornillo would be receiving instruction from teachers, they have only been provided with optional workbooks to work on if they choose. Establishing educational opportunities is surely a necessary and welcome change from the past 4 months. One would presume that the requirements to abide by State regulations, stipulated by the grants BCFS receives, should already have been being respected and that education should already have been being offered. However, Tornillo, being on Federal property, is not subject to State inspections or enforcement.

It has been difficult at times for advocates all along the border in Texas and Arizona to know how to respond. Most of the responses that have taken place have been directed towards the more profitable Southwest Key. Over the past few months, many advocates have restrained themselves from bringing attention to situations, fearing that children will be moved to even worse locations. To many, Tornillo seems like the worst-case scenario, but others fear that moving the kids out of sight to military bases would be even worse. It is hard to know what to do.

One thing I do know: we must fight normalizing this, and we must fight against the creation of one more mass incarceration institution reliant on bodies for income.

Part of me wonders if we are too late… has all of this already been happening, and already been established for years under our very noses? At the same time, looking at the numbers from the Department of Health and Human Services, I can see that income for both Southwest Key and BCFS has skyrocketed, doubling the amount of money they were receiving from the government last year. One can hope, that with the right amount of attention and pressure, we can prevent these and other organizations from being willing accomplices to the administration. One can hope, that we can discourage them from making this a normal part of their expected budget. One can hope, that we can prevent this from becoming business as usual.

Religious Responsibility

I have been struggling with what is our religious responsibility in this from the start. Throughout time when cruelty was enacted upon the vulnerable, there were religious leaders who collaborated and benefitted, and religious leaders who resisted in both public and private ways. When does the time come when we must choose? Where is the line that cannot be crossed? When does the moment come when we must risk it all?

These are questions that many of us have the luxury of asking, because we are not amongst the directly impacted community. Yet, I have heard the voice of a mother who expressed her shock that we were not jumping in our cars and storming the gates of Tornillo.

I have struggled with trying to be professional, trying to be collegial, trying to be respectful. I have held my tongue while watching different religious leaders make different choices.

That mother’s outrage at our complacency strips my soul bare.

Reading representatives from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention defending BCFS from critique, I know that Baptist Children and Family Services is not merely Baptist in name. They are claimed by the Southern Baptists, connected to the Southern Baptists. I wonder what my Baptists friends can do.

In seeking to examine our own practice, I have discussed with other pastors in Tucson how what we do with shelters here is different, and how to keep it that way. Most importantly, we do not hold children in confinement. We offer hospitality, welcome, food, clothing, and the freedom to leave at any time. There are not armed guards or fences, military helicopters or snipers on the roof as I saw on at least one occasion during my time at Tornillo. We work hard to communicate about consent and let guests know they are free to do as they choose and go where they choose. We are not funded by the government, we are supported by the church and you. We do not sign non-disclosure agreements, and as you see, have no problem using any knowledge we have to publicly critique the system. I believe those are important distinctions to maintain.

We must remain vigilant. The way things begin may not be how they end. You may start out setting up a few tents as a temporary shelter for separated kids, and end up running a tent city for thousands of unaccompanied minors.

How closely can the church cooperate with the government in serving immigrants before we have gone too far and become an accomplice to abuse? Where is the line? How much can we tolerate in order to maintain access to the vulnerable, without becoming desensitized to their suffering?

We must examine ourselves. Constantly. We must fight complacency.

 

Community, Featured, Justice

Two Cities-One Heart: An Appeal to Listen to El Paso (with Juan Ortiz)

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They say that El Paso/Juarez are two cities with one heart. While the rest of the nation views Juarez only through the eyes of the media, folks here look across the wall with affection towards the homes of people they love. Here in Southern Arizona, where people who grew up on the border call it Ambos Nogales, we can understand that. As dialogue and debate rages throughout the nation about what should be done along the border, those who actually live here have continued quietly and tirelessly laboring to make things better. This is how they have always lived. Knowing and living the cruelty of a people occupied by the Federal Government. Seeing and loving their family on both sides of the border. Being forgotten and overlooked by those that see this as a line on a map rather than a community.

Even now, as the home of their heart is suddenly a trending topic of trauma and dialogue and debate, they still find themselves often forgotten, ignored, and left out of the conversations that they should have been invited into decades ago. The reality of la Frontera is that there are people who have been living here and have been working for justice here all their lives, and they cannot be ignored any longer by those of us who say they want to make things better. We should know that the solutions to a community’s biggest dilemmas come from within that community. We must listen. It is those who have had boots on the ground for a lifetime, whose blood and sweat and tears have watered this land, some whose ancestors were here long before there was a border, who know what to do.

The time I spent in Tortilla was hot and difficult and dangerous, but what I did not share with you was the time I spent in the evenings. Time listening to and learning from some of the most inspiring people I have ever met. Time learning from women to give birth to a new day. My wish would be that every person who cast their eye towards the border, with a thought to help, would first pause and listen and learn from those doing the work and then summon all their strength and resources to lift up those who are so tired and have been laboring for so very long in these trenches.

The following is an initial attempt to further that conversation. To profile some of the amazing local people and organizations that had such a huge impact on me during my time in El Paso/Juarez and Tornillo.

The majority of what follows, as well as the conclusion to this blog, was written by the my colleague, artist, scholar, activist and University of Arizona doctoral candidate, Juan Ortiz. A Pasean (person from El Paso) whose love for his community runs as strong as the Rio Grande that runs through it and as high as the mountains that rise above the two cities with one heart. 

The Annunciation House in El Paso, whose stated mission is to serve in the Gospel spirit of service and solidarity, and to accompany the migrant, homeless, and economically vulnerable peoples of the border region through hospitality, advocacy, and education. “We place ourselves among these poor so as to live our faith and transform our understanding of what constitutes more just relationships between peoples, countries, and economies.” It houses and provides refuge for refugees, immigrant and the homeless alike through the spirit of service and advocacy. It is deeply rooted in the community and housed in one of our most historical neighborhoods.  https://annunciationhouse.org

The Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee works hand in hand with Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Annunciation house. The partnership allows local organizations to be able to aide immigrants from release to housing and desperately needed legal services. https://dmscelpaso.wixsite.com/dmscelpaso https://www.facebook.com/DMSCElPaso/

They also do the work of a community bail fund, to raise much needed money to bail the most vulnerable of our neighbors out of immigrant detention: https://www.fianzafund.org

Paola Fernandez is a member of the Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee. The DMSC is a citizen-led gathering of people dedicated to raising community funds to then use to release detained mothers in the surrounding Ice detention facilities. Including families and mothers who have been separated from their children. Paola also works in other capacities in the community including with the Catholic Dioceses, El Paso del Sur and Movimiento Cosecha. Paola is one of the many young leaders in El Paso changing the face of activism and advocacy in our town, as well as one of the people bringing her community organizing skills and strength and positive energy to the movement!

Edith Tapia is a native to the El Paso/Juarez region and also a member of the Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee. In addition to her support of detained migrants through their efforts, she also works as a Policy Research Analyst with the Hope Border Institute. In a short amount of time, she has packed in a profound amount of experience supporting, learning from, and advocating for the vulnerable on both sides of the border and throughout the United States. To learn more about the work of the Hope Border Institute: https://www.hopeborder.org

Las Americas is a 25-year-old non-profit on the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, dedicated to serving the legal needs of the most vulnerable among immigrants: Asylum seekers, battered women and abandoned children. The El Paso port-of-entry sees the second highest number of people crossing into the United States by land, second only to San Diego. El Paso also has three major migrant detention centers in the surrounding areas. Las Americas being one of the most important service providers in the entire borderlands. http://las-americas.org 

Christina Garcia Christi is an El Paso native and has lived here most of her life. She has worked with Las Americas for the past 5 years. Besides her work at Las Americas, Christi is a first generation U.S. citizen, college/university graduate, and professional who is deeply invested in El Paso and in the immigrant rights/human rights community. She is a deeply caring and devoted person who always does her best to accommodate the many requests made of her and the agency during these times of crisis.

Linda Y. Rivas (pictured speaking in banner photo) was born in Mexico and raised in El Paso from the age of 4. Linda attended The University of Texas at El Paso and received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in legal reasoning. She received a Juris Doctor from Loyola College of Law in New Orleans and was a legal intern with the Department of Justice. Linda is a lifelong advocate of human human rights. Linda’s first job as an attorney was as the West Texas VAWA Legal Supervisor at the Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project where she worked in immigration law under the VAWA and U-VISA programs and engaged in domestic violence advocacy. She is currently the managing Attorney at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center where she is focused on serving detained asylum seekers, a crucial role in what Las Americas does. She is also a new mother and a lead organizer for the El Paso Women’s March.

Melanie Gleason Melanie Gleason is the “Attorney on the Move”, investing her life fully in offering pro-bono support to immigrants along our Southern border. Having worked in southern Arizona for the past year, Melanie has recently moved to El Paso to support immigrants there and to collaborate with Las Americas. A true lawyer for the people, Melanie fit everything she owns into her tiny SmartCar and took the trip from Tucson to El Paso to dive even deeper into the places of greatest need. She is an incredible inspiration and someone who is willing to selfless give everything that she can for others. The daughter of an inner city Clevelander and a Thai immigrant, Melanie brings to all the work that she does her depth and breadth of experience and her sense of urgency and compassion. She is currently almost to her goal to cover the expenses of her work through November. To support her, give here: https://www.mightycause.com/story/Elpasoattorneyonthemove http://www.attorneyonthemove.com

In closing:

El Paso has had a long and proud tradition of immigrant advocacy and social justice practice since the Mexican Revolution up to the Chicano Movement of the 1960’s. As marginalized people living in oppressed conditions, people across the borderlands have come to understand and to demand the recognition of both their people and their city. The tragic events that have unfolded in our community that led to the internment and separation of families has had profound effects on our community. Yet, the community in response has learned come together in solidarity to decide next steps. We as a community are asking folks to consider actions that build the existing community groups, organizations, people and institutions that have and are doing the work and that will be here, far after the national spotlight has subsided.

The organization I belong to Movimiento Cosecha decided instead of committing to a short term direct action, instead to commit to long term relationships within the community and to give the funds raised directly to the community bail fund. A fund that has released many mothers in ICE detention facilities. Movimiento Cosecha is national organization led by directly impacted people fighting for the dignity, respect and permanent protection of all undocumented people in the United States. http://www.lahuelga.com

At the end of the day that is what should take precedence and guide the actions of anyone wanting to ally in this struggle. Potential “Allies” should ask themselves some very important and germane questions: Are the funds we are raising (in the name of the oppressed) directly helping those suffering from those oppressions? What are going to be the lasting consequences of our actions, what will they build? Will they be additive and constructive? Or will they be temporal, reductive, intrusive or destructive?

If you haven’t asked yourself these questions, please do so before you decide to come to a site of great trauma and dehumanization.

 

Community, Justice

Not All Is Lost.

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The news today felt like a tidal wave. Like that time I stepped on a yellow-jacket nest and they swarmed me from all sides. Yet, despair could not seem to find a good spot to land on me. I just kept hearing her words: “Not all is lost.”

Driving from El Paso to Tornillo with a woman directly impacted by our cruelty towards immigrants from Central America, she looked around at my car full of white folx and her response was, “Now I know that not all is lost.” 

This week, of all weeks, when it feels like the whole world is crashing down around us, this is the week she decided that not all is lost?

“After the election,” she explained, “everyone was saying such hateful things about us. It felt like nobody loved us. It felt like everyone wanted to get rid of us. But now I see you are all here willing to risk everything with us. Now I know that not all is lost.”

Not all is lost. If she can believe that, then so can I.

Not all is lost, because all it takes to change this is enough of us to get up and actively refuse to let it happen. All it takes is a Rahab living at the wall and shielding the servants of God from the wall patrol that was searching for them. All it takes is a Ruth binding herself in solidarity to a Naomi of another land, refusing to let her walk through struggle and uncertainty alone. All it takes is an Esther, saying, “I will go to the king, though it be against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”

All it takes is one person to say, “You are not alone.”

All it takes is you. You, creating a ripple in your neighborhood, that joins with all the others making ripples in their own, that turns into “justice running down like a river, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” That is what can push back this tide that feels like it will crush us all: you. 

Not all is lost, because we are not alone. If she can believe that, then so can I.

When we arrived at Tornillo, we planned to send up a balloon into the air, with a banner hanging down from it that read, “No estan solos” (You are not alone). We wanted the kids imprisoned in tents at Tornillo to know that there were people that cared about them, and that were fighting for them on the outside. It was simple, it would not have changed the world, but it would have given them hope. It would have reminded them that not all is lost. For us, that was worth the risk. 

Unfortunately the balloon never got up high enough for them to read. A local rancher, who had been encouraged to feel free to engage in vigilantism by CBP, interrupted and eventually pulled a revolver out, waving it around and threatening to shoot down the balloon. 

Despite the fact that he oversaw the alfalfa field next to where the kids were held in tents, where the crop duster had passed over the day before, he believed that all of this was fake news. The control of those who seek to undermine the truth was so strong upon him, that he believed what he heard from the administration on Fox News rather than what he saw with his very own eyes. The pressure from CBP was so great on him that he was waving a revolver around a bunch of people simply holding a big balloon. 

As she stood in front of his gun, her previous words echoed in my mindp1080645.jpg, “You are all here willing to risk everything with us. Now I know that not all is lost.”

Eventually through peaceful dialogue, he was deescalated, and perhaps began to realize how foolish he was being. He put his revolver in his front pocket. But that did not stop him from saying, “Well, I’ll let you do it if you pay me $5,000.” I wondered how much, if anything, CBP was paying him to outsource their intimidation. 

Eventually the balloon was deflated, as were our spirits, and we all went our separate ways. 

Still, not all was lost.

Not all is lost because she is not alone, because we are not alone, because you are not alone. 

As we wanted to tell the kids, “No estan solos.”

We will stand together, and we will stare directly into whatever threats come our way, and we will endure them as a people united. Like Ruth chose Naomi over her country. Like Rahab shielded the spies that climbed over the wall. Like Esther broke the law for a people threatened with obliteration. 

We will love one another and we will tell the truth, no matter how many lies and how much hate come our way. In order to stop atrocity, there just has to be enough people to say no – you are one of those people. We need your “No.”

Today I called my mother, and I told her that for the third time since the election of Donald Trump, I had stood within range of the weapon of a white man who was willing to do harm in his name.

And I do not stand here alone. The truth is that there are already so many people who already stand in the range of harm, regardless of what they do or say, but simply because of who they are. Simply because of the religion they practice. Simply because of the language they speak. Simply because of the country where they were born. Simply because of the color of their skin. Simply because they came desperate for help, and trusting we would aid them rather than kidnap their children. 

I’m not asking you if you will stand with me in the way of harm, I’m asking you if you will join me in standing with those who have no choice in the matter. Those who do not have the privilege of walking away. 

There is someone in your community who is tempted today to believe that all is lost. They cannot avoid the danger and fears they face by simply refusing to “talk politics” or trying not to “make people uncomfortable.” Their reality is discomfort, and there is no escape. They need to see that they are not alone. They need to see that you will stand with them. They need to trust that you will stay. 

Not all is lost. If she can believe that, then so can I. 

“Do not press me to leave you

    or to turn back from following you!

Where you go, I will go;

    where you lodge, I will lodge;

your people shall be my people,

    and your God my God.

Where you die, I will die—

    there will I be buried.

May the Lord do thus and so to me,

    and more as well,

if even death parts me from you!”

Ruth 1:16-17

*Conversation quoted with consent.