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

MY FATHER’S GIFTS

 

I’ve been writing a series of poems about my father, poems I never was able to write when he was alive.  There is a certain freedom, a certain reconciliation that death can bring to relationships.  If I had tried to write these when he was alive, I think they would either have turned out overly sentimental or angry.

Many of the poems have to do with his overcoming adversity: told he was “less than” for speaking German as the son of immigrants in 1917, the loss of his mother at age 12, poverty in Depression-era rural North Dakota, being rootless in his early twenties, World War II.  There are also poems about his joys and passions: planting and reaping, family, politics, hope.  One of the greatest gifts he received was 22 plus years of retirement, in which he was healthy and active until his final illness.  He became a great listener, and a healer to many people.   These are some lines from my poem called “Retirement”, in his voice:

I have muscles in my mouth               

that have not grown old.  I have ears                         
soft as a sparrow’s belly.  I will sit
in my recliner. I will listen to the rain
furrow the hard earth with grace.
I will release like pollen blown by the wind. 

I’ve tried to not gloss over the difficult parts of our relationship, although the most difficult are still hard to get at.  To the extent that I have been able to write about these things, a few things have helped.  First, I am not the angry young man I was, and I don’t feel that I have to prove anything to him (that’s a great liberation).  Secondly, I’m exploring my relationship with him by writing about his life, instead of writing about my feelings.  And finally, I am exploring, rather than telling, with the hope that my love of language will allow me to see the fierce beauty in his—and my—life.

Some fellow poets have told me that they see a lot of rage in my poems.  I don’t think of myself as an angry poet. I do write about injustices—whether it be that of the war my father was in, or the deportation of a father from our congregation.  But I surely am not angry while I am writing about people’s adversity.  (I save my anger for computers, and political ads!) As I explore my father’s trials, I stand in awe, in compassion, in a desire to embrace and honor him.

I wonder how good we are as a people at overcoming adversity.  We see the destruction that Sandy caused, and there’s a burst of good feeling for those who helped, and there’s a concern for those who suffered, but soon weariness for this disaster will be replaced, I fear, with concern for the next one.  And so much of what passes for political discourse is angry.

I’ve tried to write about the political choices we have coming up on Tuesday (not that our involvement ceases then), but I find I am way too angry to create anything of meaning, let alone beauty. I could rant for awhile, but we have enough of that.

I am angry that we have heard almost nothing about poverty or climate change in all the campaigns. I am angry that we have not heard our responsibilities to the world, but only what we have a right to defend. I am angry at the annual scapegoating of immigrants, poor people, gays and lesbians and people in other countries (whose leaders do things “we don’t like”). 

I believe that underneath our anger can be only two things: fear and hurt.  Fear of what the other will do if and when they have the same (or more) power than us; hurt at the loss of the way things were, and of a sense of stability and security that came with it.  Never mind that that security may have been illusory and unsustainable—losing our sense of security can make us so anxious that we are swayed by appeals to our baser emotions.  When we are anxious and afraid, we tend to close into our group or lash out.  Neither one of those is a way to build community.

My father was often an angry man, and I, like my siblings received some of that.  I don’t judge him for that like I used to, and I can see some of the roots of his anger more clearly.  But he also had a hope, a joy that—like a tender plant surviving and growing in the midst of drought and wind—a hope and a joy that gave his love wings.

For the last 11 or so years of my dad’s life, I lived on the East Coast.  We would talk a lot, and we always talked on election night or the next night. I miss not being able to do that.  He would tell you to vote straight Democratic!  I tell you to vote hope, vote joy, vote justice for the poor and vote with a gentle power, a power that won’t quit.

 Polls open at 7 in Minnesota.

 Be justice.  Be beauty.

 Patrick

 
P.S. Thank you for all the prayers and thoughts regarding the death of my mother-in-law, Rosa Arroyo, on All Saints Day.  She lives!