Today
is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which commemorates—if that is the right
word—the slaughter of the boy children two years and younger by King
Herod. We might think of Herod as someone
so evil and so crazy that he can’t be compared to anyone living today. I don’t think so. Herod is king, and is able to wreak his will
on any part of his kingdom, but Herod’s kings—the ones who order him around—are
rage and fear. And entitlement is his
queen. There are a lot of Herods in the
world today. Some we can put a face on—like Assad of Syria, who tortures
children as young as six. Some are
impersonal, but just as deadly: poverty and malnutrition, gun violence and
human trafficking.
Mi
comadre, Pastora Heidi Neumark, wrote in her book “Breathing Space” about child
sacrifice in the south Bronx. Not a sacrifice chillingly ordered by a Herod,
but by a society that treats poor communities as environmental dumping grounds;
a society that spends more on imprisoning young people in such communities than
on educating them. I had the privilege of serving in the Bronx during part of
the time that Heidi was there, and thinking about that time makes me remember
two images, both of which have to do with windows:
The
first is that the City of New York “dealt with” the amazing number of abandoned
buildings by painting over the boards used to cover the windows, at least on
the buildings that commuters could see from the highways or the trains. They painted little domestic scenes of
curtains fluttering and a flower pot resting on the window sill. There may have even been more than one style
of painting, so that the six story buildings didn’t look so uniform.
The
other image is a window on Fulton Avenue and 170th Street. I would pass this abandoned building every
day home from St. John’s Lutheran Church.
Out of the fifth floor window grew an Ailanthus tree, which also is
called the “Tree of Heaven”. It is not
native to the United States, it was brought here as an ornamental, and it does
particularly well in places of poor water and soil (like 5th floors
of buildings!). The US Department of
Agriculture’s web site speaks of this invasive species thusly: “Crowds out native species; damages pavement and building
foundations in urban areas”. No doubt
true—we had an Ailanthus that broke through the concrete behind our church
building in Philly (see my poem at the end).
But for every day I drove by that
tree, it was a symbol of hope: that something new would come out of the
brokenness. The last time I was in the Bronx, that building had been renovated,
and the streets seemed safer and cleaner, but the struggle for dignity and hope
still has a long way to go.
This Christmas, and this Feast Day
have gathered under the shadow of the shootings at the elementary school in
Newtown, CT. A sacrifice of the
innocents, to which politicians and the media all respond by saying, “we cannot
allow this to happen again.” I’ve heard someone
say several times on the news: “I can’t imagine what those families are going
through.” I don’t think that’s true. I think we can imagine pretty strongly what
it must be like to have a child murdered, and how terrible that is. That’s not
the problem. The problem is that we can’t imagine creative ways to prevent
these tragedies. Whatever the “solution”
to the “fiscal cliff” that gets coughed up by the Congress and President, it is
still going to leave a huge deficit of
imagination.
Why can’t we imagine that we as a
nation can fully house, feed, educate and provide health care and security for
all children, including those in urban areas who are felled by gun violence,
one or two at a time? Why can’t we
imagine a loving respect for our planet that will dream up creative—and even
fun ways—to counteract global warming? How come it’s so hard for us as a people to
imagine that we could actually repent of the evil we’ve done with our military,
and work with others to resolve conflicts.
One more image from the south Bronx
popped up as I was writing this, that of the doors at Heidi’s church. When she first came to Transfiguration as
their pastor, they would lock the doors on Sunday after all the members were
in. (Thus doing incarnationally what we as church throughout the world do way
too often.) Heidi began to work with the
youth of the neighborhood to paint the gospel story for that Sunday on the
doors. Imagining the fulfillment of the
promise in paint. (Readers in New York
should check out Heidi’s church: http://www.trinitylutherannyc.org/)
I’m going to brag a little now. Our church, St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Minneapolis (www.stpaulschurchmpls.org)
finished our 17th mural in Phillips this year. We’re also up to 30
mosaic planters installed around the community.
Most of them have stayed graffiti free; but when they’ve been tagged, we’ve
gone out and re-painted, even to incorporating some of the graffiti into the
art. That’s a small part of our
imagining a new community—a new heaven and earth, a la Revelation 21-22, if I
may be so bold. What I’ve found most
inspiring about this is how excited our youth get when they’re working on
creating something new (sometimes, too exciting—we’ve done a couple of “sidewalk
murals”, if you get my drift. Pretty colorful
too, although too post-modern for my taste!)
I imagine a day in which there are
no more innocents sacrificed. I am
realistic enough to know that I may never see that. But I am hopeful enough to know that working
for that, praying for that, expecting that is a good way to live.
Be justice. Be beauty. Be imagination.
Patrick
P. S. My spell check flagged “incarnationally” and
offered only this alternative: “incarnation ally.” Thanks to all my Incarnation Allies from
2012!
LATE
AFTERNOON ON TIOGA STREET
Ana is pulling out
her god-sisters hair on the stoop
while her little brother
picks up a chicken bone
& a piece of Pop Tart
& something like gum
from the sidewalk,
looks at each piece carefully
then stashes them
in the fold of his bulging diaper
for safe keeping,
future reference,
circumstantial evidence.
Next door, los primos
gutting the last row house
have just been shocked
by an illegal electric hookup
brought in from the alley
by the last set of squatters.
They stand smoking under the shade
of a renegade Ailanthus
that has burst through
a chink in the sidewalk
and now stands 20 feet tall,
providing the only respite for blocks.
Their hair points out
in all directions,
like flags of island nations
saluting a passing hurricane,
and the smoke they exhale
rises a bent offering
up through the branched panicles
of the tree of heaven.
Across the street,
Cristina is reading the book
given her at day camp.
She sits on the stoop
of the storefront church
that half burnt
the night Peanut got shot.
The board up people
covered only half of the
“KNOW JESUS—KNOW PEACE” mural
and so as Cristina smiles—
her Mom is out of the hospital,
& her Dad has stopped using
& her Abuela’s Chihuahua dog
runs in and out of their front porch—
the late afternoon sun
strikes just half a painted flower
and letters which spell out
“OW JESUS”, “OW PEACE”,
And the Chihuahua
dog brushes her leg
each trip in and out of the house
until Abuela comes out
in her house dress
and lays Tiger’s evening plate
of rice and beans
down on the steps.
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