LA NATIVIDAD

Merchants are happy, apparently, because Black Friday was good, and Cyber Monday was good, and there’s an extra “shopping week” between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  At the church this week, I received another ad for “a different kind of Christmas drama for children!”  Looking inside, it seemed that, while they had tried to make a stab at diversity (a couple of kids of color); there was absolutely no representation of anyone who seemed to be poor.  And yes, I know that many people are poor without “showing it”, whatever that means.

But it struck me that everyone looked pretty happy and even delighted, which is the usual emotional note that Christmas pageants portray, including the one we’re going to do.  I like happy. I like delighted.  But if we listen to the Christmas story as it happened, and as it was retold, I think there’s a wide range of emotions felt and expressed by those who were involved, including fear, sadness, worry, anger, terror, hopelessness, and finally, joy.

La Natividad is a co-production of our church and In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater.  It had been on hiatus for a couple of winters, and now is back.  I’m biased, but I think it is the best telling of the Christmas story.  But you can check it out for yourselves at www.hobt.org.  You don’t “go” to see La Natividad; you “come” and see. And you come and walk.  With Mary and Joseph—Maria y José—, as they seek Posada or shelter.

La Natividad is a bilingual telling of the Christmas story from the point of view of an immigrant Mexican family, set in the Phillips neighborhood, the most diverse, youngest and second poorest neighborhood in Minneapolis.  A majority of the people who live here are immigrants or children of immigrants.  Some fleeing as refugees, some seeking a better life for their families, some are the original inhabitants of this land who have been uprooted from the land and language.  Many, if not most of the people struggle. And yet, there is so much faith, so much generosity and so much hope to be found here.

In La Natividad, Maria is shopping for tortillas, a normal everyday task, when she is interrupted by an angel.  A big angel!  An angel who doesn’t speak in words that human onlookers can hear, but one who speaks to the body, the heart, the womb.  Maria is going to have a child.  The child.  The child of hope, of peace, of longing.

There is but little time to absorb this news, as Elizabeth, her elderly cousin greets her with her own news of impending, bizarre childbirth; then her promised, her beloved José asks Maria how in the world she can be pregnant—by God, no less; and then the announcement comes that everyone must go to be counted.  (Note that Caesar likes everyone to be counted, whereas God likes everyone to be named.) 

And then we’re off—the cast and the audience—to meet the shepherds, the star, the angel choir, and Herod.  Herod is central to the Christmas story, but is usually left out of performances in churches.   Why?  I don’t think just because he is evil, though evil he is.  But a good “evil character” makes for good drama, doesn’t it?  Think of Jafar, Cruella DeVille or any other Disney foil.  They are usually really, really good bad guys.

I think Herod is troublesome for us because the violence he unleashes seems so random and we feel so powerless to confront it.  It challenges our sense of justice and of the safety of the universe. When Herod learns he has been tricked by the Three Kings, he sends his soldier to kill every boy under two in Bethlehem.   Babies who may or may not have met Jesus, but whose only crime is being born nearby and close to when Jesus is.    It raises all sorts of questions for those of us who believe in a loving, powerful God.  Questions like:

Why does God save Jesus and not the other children?

Why does God not warn the innocents of the coming slaughter?

For many of us, those questions lead into further, harder questions:  Does God really care about us?  Is God really able?

(If you think I’m stepping into new territory, please read the Psalms of Lament)

I wish I could say that this story has never been repeated, but when you look at the children murdered in Syria, those sold into slavery around the world, those dying for lack of health care or food or clean water, we know that it isn’t.

Whatever our faith, our hope is, I don’t think we can live fully human lives until we love the world in which all this happens, the world as it is, and love it enough to give ourselves to it, so that healing and liberation can happen.

Back to La Natividad: This year is particularly poignant, for the woman from our church who has played Maria for five years said goodbye to her husband at the airport this August, when he “voluntarily self-deported” (if that’s not Herod language, what is?).  Her son, who was the first baby Jesus, is now six and an American citizen.  Some of the performances will feature a “Maria” who was brought here as a child, and was one of the “dreamers” applying to work and study here.  Many of the “neighbors” who walk in the performance, and open the way for Maria and José to find shelter have similar stories. And walk they will, together…

I remember the first year that we did La Natividad, and an audience member wrote to complain that we “had put immigration into the Christmas story”.  If you haven’t read the story lately, I invite you to take a look at it, in Matthew 2 and Luke 1 and 2.  Who are the main characters?

Joseph and Mary: poor Galileans, who need to leave their home because of superpower politics.  Mary is an unwed mother.  They are rejected in Joseph’s own town.  They aren’t allowed, or can’t afford to stay at the inn.  Jesus is born in a shelter—for animals. They are visited by shepherds, who were considered dirty, dishonest and impure.  The Three Kings are foreigners, from the East (where the Empire’s hold is tenuous).  The holy child is hunted by an insane king, and has to flee, as a refugee to a foreign country, and live there for years, in a different culture, with different language, different laws, different food, and can’t travel to see family back home.

A tad bit relevant to our situation today, don’t you think?

I could go on and on.

But mostly, I want you to come to La Natividad.  Come and see, come and walk.  One wonderful thing about working with our church and the theater on this is that it brings some many people together. It was truly joyful last night at our first rehearsal in the sanctuary.  Another wonderful thing is that the story is told in its truth, which includes the struggle for justice, for peace, for life—and it is told in a way that is beautiful.

Here’s my poem, titled “La Natividad”

 

LA NATIVIDAD

Maria, you shop for tortillas, the tongue’s comfort,

a bed to lay the evening meal upon.  One eye out
for La Migra, one ear cocked for a shout, a boot,
a hard knock on the door.  You hear the bells
of tricky angels troubling, you listen to the voice        
of God that tells you your womb
is a quarry of bright diamonds, a pond
bearing wounded fish into the world. How
to explain that to a man who spends his days
talking to wood?  Finally, you walk. Together
and alone.  You take your feet and the child
feasting on your darkness and you carry
into the night, trusting that the dust you walk on,
the water you caress with your eyes
is the same dust, the same dew God
used to make the world, to make the man
and woman one and apart and free.
You cross a bridge, you don’t look back,
you march into the holy, abandoned rock
where beasts assemble and you wait. 
One by one the heavenly beings return,
with four paws and two, with wings
and fins and feathers, gathered to
watch the little one burst from you
and keep the silence love requires.
Look, Maria!  Listen! The voice of God
upon your lips.  Even your screams
turn the stars into dancing.

Be Justice.  Be Beauty.

 

Patrick

We Need a Little Christmas?

The oldies station in the Twin Cities goes “All-Holiday” each year, and each year, like lemming clockwork, it starts earlier and earlier.  This year, way before Christmas, like closer to Veteran’s Day than Thanksgiving.  I turn it on now and then when I’m driving, and today, like most days, it did not fail in upping my irony quotient.

 The song playing was “We need a little Christmas”. The chorus starts like this:

            We need a little Christmas,

            Right this very minute

The song goes on to say (rather bubbly, as you might expect) that:

It hasn't snowed a single flurry,
But Santa, dear, we're in a hurry;

Aren’t we now!  K-Mart, like a lot of the Christmas vampires, is opening at 9 pm on Thanksgiving Day.  And it’s also opening at 6 am on Thanksgiving Day, so we can buy before and after we show our gratitude by eating mass quantities. We need a little Christmas? Apparently, we need a lot.

On a serious note, if you didn’t watch the latest Ken Burns documentary on public television, please try to see it when it comes around again. 

Face Book: The Dust Bowl: a film by Ken Burns.  http://www.facebook.com/thedustbowl?ref=ts&fref=ts

The film shows how human greed and lack of care for the planet led to a terrible ecological disaster. Over-plowing and over-planting tore up the natural balance of the prairie, and made what would have been cyclical drought into catastrophic drought.  (Remember this, global warming deniers).  That it happened in the Great Depression made it even worse.  Everyone suffered, but the poor took the brunt of it.

But there was hope.  There was hope in the families that stood for each other, and there was hope in the government programs that helped.  The Works Progress Administration (WPA) paid people to build roads and plant trees.  It was just a little bit of government aid that provided WPA jobs, but it was enough to keep families alive, and dignity intact.  Of course, some called in “socialism” in those days.

One of the survivors talked about the Great Exodus to California, and how families would pack everything they could into their old car or truck, and head off to the promise of fruit trees and work for all.  Because her family lived just off the main highway, many families stopped to ask for food on the way. She recalled that her mom didn’t have much, but she always had something to give to people.  Often, she said: “it was a bread and butter sandwich, but it was something.”

It was just a little bit of food, but it cared for a family on a journey from despair to hope.  It was just a little bit of food, but it preserved one of our greatest spiritual gifts: hospitality.

Pretty soon we’ll hear about the so-called “War on Christmas” again.  As if there is some sinister force—no doubt connected with socialism, or perhaps the Grinch—that is trying to keep people from saying “Merry Christmas”.  I think the War on Christmas started long ago, when we turned it into a shopping contest.  Read the book: Jesus was not a big consumer or creator of wealth.

Jesus was born a dust bowl baby.

He was an immigrant born in a strange land, and hunted from his birth.

He was welcomed by shepherds, who knew dirt and rejection, and who knew hope.

He constantly chose to eat and stand with the poor, women, lepers, traitors, prostitutes, foreigners, the sick, children, sinners—the most vulnerable of all.

Do we really want a little Christmas of the sort Jesus lived?  Or can we dream a bigger breaking in of a new order of justice and peace?

Instead of shopping at Wal Mart this  holiday season, why not stand with the workers there:

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/walmart_strike/?rc=share_email

And if you want a practical way to utilize the gifts of poor people, here’s one place to start:

http://microgrants.net/

The Jesus I know is justice this holy season.  Our family will eat and give presents and decorate the house.  But we will also pray and work for those who deserve a “little Christmas”.

Be justice. Be beauty.

Patrick

My father struggled through the Dust Bowl and Depression. He rode the combine trail through the wheat harvest when the harvest was good, and worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps or CCC, another socialist government tyranny program.  Here’s a newer poem of mine about that:

 

THE PRICE OF WHEAT

What should wheat cost

when it’s planted by a young boy
plowing behind draught horses,
while his mother lies dying
at home, the cost of her last-born
son cutting the string that binds
death to family? What should
it cost when the rain stops and
the locusts multiply and the banks
fail and all manner of hell
is unleashed upon the land?
What would its measure be
if the boy grew hard as his hands,
the father cold as a cigarette burning
in a dark, dark room, the county
falling down around itself
and the whole country following?
What wars and devastations
would rise from its restlessness?
There is bread that is made to eat
and there is bread that is made
to sorrow.  Dirt, rain, seed,
hooves, time, hands, blood, fire.
Every day it is kneaded and left
to rise on the stove top, every day
we eat without remembering is
a sore on the tongue.  We are
the bread. Who swallows?
Who laughs? Whose pockets?

FRIDAY NIGHT IS GRACE’S NIGHT

Friday night is often Grace’s night; that is Grace from China Wok, our favorite Chinese takeout place.  We like eating Grace’s food: it’s tasty, it’s reasonably priced, and we have a spiritual connection with Grace that has grown to be almost a daily reminder of how our immigration system treats people, and how resilient are people who want a better life.

I did Grace’s wedding with Jackie a couple of years ago.  It was on Good Friday, the only Good Friday wedding I have done.  It was in the immigration prison in Bloomington, MN; unfortunately it may not be the only funeral I will ever do in a prison.  They are both immigrants from China—Grace is a permanent resident, Jackie thought his asylum petition was proceeding well, when he was stopped for a traffic violation.

Turned out, his petition was not proceeding smoothly. His lawyer—who has since been disbarred—took his money, and failed to notify Jackie of a hearing.  Jackie didn’t appear at that hearing, and so a warrant was issued for his arrest. The warrant that was waiting for him when he was stopped.

Jackie and Grace were planning their wedding when he was arrested, and were hoping that he would be out in time.  But as they already had the wedding license application, and it was one day before it would expire, they asked me to do the wedding. In jail. On Good Friday.

Grace and Jackie have a daughter named Abigail, who was a few months old when the wedding took place.  After going through security and waiting (it must be against the law to not have a time of waiting for any dealing with immigration), we were brought into a small courtroom.  There was an elevated judge’s seat, with a judge’s robe hanging from the wall behind it, next to the American flag.  There was a place for witnesses to stand.  There were empty seats all around.

Jackie came in, with six guards, his hands and feet cuffed.  They did not take off the cuffs for the wedding, and you cannot hug anyone or hold a baby with handcuffs on.  Minnesota requires two witnesses for a marriage—one was Jackie’s sister, another was the interpreter.  Plus six guards guarding this dangerous prisoner.

Grace did her vows in English.  Jackie did his in his Chinese dialect, with his interpreter translating them into English. I blessed the couple and then told Jackie “You may kiss the bride.”  The interpreter translated, and Jackie said something that I could imagine meant “What?!”  The interpreter spoke again, longer this time, and Jackie, after hesitating, gently kissed his wife on the cheek.  Their honeymoon was a 45-minute visit on the prison phone system, Plexiglas between them.  See. Hear. But no Touch.

There’s more to the story—Jackie was eventually deported, and Abigail is now living with him in China, while Grace applies to become a citizen, with the hope of bringing her husband and baby back. 

Grace and Jackie own China Wok, and like many immigrant entrepreneurs, they have worked long, long hours.  When Abigail was a baby, and both of her parents were working at the restaurant, Jackie built a little box for Abigail to stay in, tucked under the counter between the seating area and the kitchen.  It was home, it was comfort, and I imagine that even after her father was deported, Abigail still knew his presence in that place.    This is the last stanza of my poem “Abigail Lives in a Box”:

Abigail is not angry that she lives

under the counter, in a box.

Months go by, onions are chopped,

petitions fail, lips spill soup

on the small tables.  Abby can still

smell her father’s hands laying carpet

in her little cell, tacking soft fabric

to the walls, sinking each wayward nail. 

There is comfort in a job well done.

There is family like sweat and wind.

You can read the whole poem at my MnArtist page:  http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=184665

We have an opportunity to change the immigration system, now that Republicans are waking up to the reality of Hispanic voters.  Even Norm Coleman, who toed the harsh line when he last ran for Senate has come around to a more “enlightened” position, which would recognize that our economy and our country depends on immigrant labor, and that it doesn’t make sense to leave 11 million people in the shadows.  See his opinion piece at: http://www.twincities.com/opinion/ci_22004271/norm-coleman-immigration-reform-time-path-citizenship

We need to hold our elected officials feet to the fire, whether Democrat or Republican.  Here’s one site that can help with that: http://www.facebook.com/faithandimmigration

 Grace will be at her stove today at China Wok: 2800, 27^th Ave S.  I recommend the fried tofu dish, as does my wife Luisa. Natasha is partial to General Tso’s chicken, and Talia likes the cream cheese wontons.  But really, you can’t go wrong with Grace!

Be Justice.  Be Beauty.

Patrick

Certainly I'm uncertain

            I must confess that I have little energy for discussing things that are political a little over a week after the election.  Except to note that stupid things are still being said, just not hammered into our brains, 30-second spot after 30-second spot.

            One of the blessings of Face Book (if blessing is the right word!) is that I have been able to reconnect with a number of young people whom I baptized or led to their First Communion.  Except they’re not young anymore!  Some have children as old as they were when I first met them.  Some are having more difficult lives than others. 

            Being a pastor has many benefits, including being invited into people’s deepest joys and sorrows, and given the right to speak to them.  I did a funeral yesterday for a man who had died at age 75. I did a house blessing and ate some homemade fish tacos at a parishioner’s house.  I talked with a young person who is having real struggles.  I talked with a young father who is excited about what the future will bring to him and his family.

            There are other benefits.  But a benefit I don’t have is certainty.  I don’t know if I’ve made a difference in a person’s life or not.  It’s very hard to measure change.  Sometimes with hindsight, I can see it.  But at the moment—whether in hope or sorrow, or just in life—I have to go on hope that there is a blessing in what I do.

            I was working on a poem today about a young woman from our church in Philly, who committed suicide at age 19 with her baby and boyfriend sleeping in the next room.  She had done her First Communion when she was around 11, and seemed to really have a chance at a good life, despite what she had experienced (a dad doing life in prison, a mother who was abused by a number of boyfriends).  The last time I saw her, we talked about baptizing her baby.  We never got to that.

            The poem isn’t finished, but the title is, I think.  It’s simply: “I Couldn’t”.

I couldn’t …

pull the gun from your hands

I couldn’t …

 remember you to yourself

I couldn’t …

convince you the voice

that spoke so softly inside

was a homicide in the shape

of a horseshoe, that the luckier

your life got, the harder

it became for you

 to believe

in you

            And so on, what I couldn’t do.  I know many of us have experienced that powerlessness and wondered what to do with it.

            What I would like most of all right now, as I say to her in the poem, “sit with you” for awhile.  Sit with you alive. Sit with you here.

            My faith in a God of mercy and justice leads me out of that powerlessness, but often that walk is very slow, and very painful.  That is when I like to remember what a community of loving people is.  Among other things, a place to celebrate.

            If you’ve never been to a First Communion with people from Mexico, let me know and I will invite you to the next one!  It is quite a celebration, a joy to all the senses.  This is an excerpt from the poem “First Communion for the Children of the Undocumented” (found on my MNartists page at: http://www.mnartists.org/search.do?action=list#RefineWork). Even with the terrible uncertainty of their lives, there is such a hope.

Kneeling at the altar,

with their padrinos’ hands

resting on their shoulders

like seraphim about to strike,

they seem a bit out of place, brilliant

in white suits and dresses, veils

and rosaries and bibles, these children

with this bit of God in their hands.

 

Seraphim are both wild angels and winged serpents—think about that image!

I don’t know how people write every day on their blogs. I’m happy I got to this one during a challenging week.

Be beauty.  Be justice.

Patrick

Random thoughts on the election

I went canvassing yesterday, where the temperature hovered around 40 and it drizzled.  Unlike 2008, where it was 72 in Minneapolis!  A couple of things struck me:

-- A reminder of how transient and vulnerable much of our country still is.  The first street we were on is a block away from Park Avenue, where some of the first mansions built in Minneapolis now house social service agencies. Many of the apartments had different names on them then in the voter registration lists we had, some looked boarded up; a lot had five or six names on the mailbox for each floor of a duplex.  These are the folks that would have been most effected had the Voter ID amendment passed.  I would bet many of them did not have ID with their current address on it

-- One of the conversations I had was with a man—I would guess 60, who came out with just pants and no shirt on.  Even though he told me right away that he was voting for Romney and not Obama (for whom I was working, in case you wondered!), we had a nice conversation about the amendments.  We were freezing, and he was there bare-chested!  The info that he had received from his landlord was so wrong, and he was worried that he would lose his right to vote, because he doesn’t have a driver’s license.  But he was determined to vote, and I hope he did!

-- At one corner house, with six names listed, I talked with a Somali woman, who with the English she is learning told me: “we can’t vote, but next year we become citizens!”  What a great smile she had!

-- The election returns come slower to Chile, judging from my phone call with my wife last night, because I was updating her on which states were being “called”.  Everyone in her house was super interested in our elections, and up on the candidates and positions.  My hope is that someday we will be in the same category about elections in Chile and a lot of other places.

-- Perhaps I am an old fogey, and not realistic, but I would like for us to have experiences now like I had growing up.  Most every Sunday, we went to Mass as a family, then watched Meet the Press, and then with my Dad cooking breakfast (eggs fried in bacon grease—hum! Not healthy, but tasty!), he would lead a discussion of the sermon and the presenter on the TV. I remember people from the two major parties actually discussing in detail issues of the day—and often really trying to find some common ground.  I’m not sure who the partners for that would be—the Republican moderates, like Olympia Snowe and Dick Lugar are not in the Senate next year, and the House leadership is so beholden to the tea party, but I do think it would be possible. 

-- Finally, I think that while the fiscal cliff is huge, the real deficits we are facing are a deficit in compassion for those who are struggling, a deficit of commitment to invest long-term in education, health and infrastructure and a deficit in understanding how the world has changed.  The networks hit the note of how the electorate is changing—more Latino, younger, etc.  I think we also need to look at how the world is changing.  We will not be the one superpower forever, and we will need to understand the interests of other nations and peoples much more than we do now. I hope that we can work on these deficits as well.

I love the November sunlight, with the trees bare and the ground not yet covered by snow.  So if we ever get a sunny day here in Minneapolis, I’m going out to marvel at God’s creation as it turns into its deep, deep rest.

Be beauty. Be justice (even if we've only gone part of the way we want to go)

Patrick