Remembering Romero

"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."

Oscar Romero (d. March 24, 1980). Presente. 

No te salves

A poem my casamate Maria shared with all the Southwest JVs at our Re-Orientation as a call to action in working for social justice.


No te salves / Don’t Save Yourself Mario Benedetti

Don’t remain immobile
At the edge of the road
Don’t freeze the joy
Don’t love with reluctance
Don’t save yourself now
or ever
Don’t save yourself
Don’t fill with calm
Don’t reserve in the world
Only a secure place
Don’t let your eyelids fall
Heavily as judgments
Don’t speak without lips
Don’t sleep without sleepiness
Don’t imagine yourself without blood
Don’t judge yourself without time.
But if
in spite of everything
You can’t help it,
And you freeze the joy,
And you love with reluctance,
And you save yourself now,
And you fill with calm
And you reserve in the world
Only a calm place,
And you let fall your eyelids
Heavily as judgments,
And you speak without lips,
And you sleep without sleepiness,
And you imagine yourself without blood,
And you judge yourself without time,
And you remain immobile
At the edge of the road,
And you save yourself,
Then…
Don’t stay with me.

Quote for an Exhausted JV

"Pray as if everything depended on God, and work as if everything depended on you." My dad often cites this St. Ignatius quote when I'm stressed/burnt-out/lacking motivation. The idea of working as if everything depended on you seems kind of daunting, and I never really found the quote that comforting (sorry, Dad)...until this week when I hit a seriously low point at work and needed to find some solace. So I was looking around the interwebz for the exact citation of this Ignatian quote, and I stumbled upon some interesting findings. First of all, it turns out this particular quote is actually attributed to St. Augustine. But Ignatius did say something similar: "Trust in God, as if the whole course of events depends on you and not on God, but fully implement your plans as if nothing needs to be done by you, but only by God." In short, pray as if everything depended on you, and work as if everything depended on God.


Here's why I like Iggy's original quote (a quote which was later reversed because people thought it was an error, and also perhaps stolen from Augustine, but no one here is concerned about saintly plagiarism):


If I prayed as if everything depended on me, I would be quick to realize my shortcomings. Recognizing that I need God's help, I would pray for the graces of understanding, compassion, and wisdom. I would need to pray for the strength to carry on. I would need to pray for forgiveness. And I would pray with a sense of urgency.


And if I worked as if everything depended on God, then I would be working with inspiration much deeper than my own personal motivation. A Jesuit blogger says it better than I could: "If I work as if everything depends on God, then I will go forward with greater confidence and energy, since the work to be done is in more capable hands than my own. If the outcome is in God’s hands, then I will perhaps be able to persevere in the face of opposition and apparent poor results. If it all depends on God, then I will not hesitate to 'step out of the boat,' out of my own comfort zone, as I try to serve. And if God is in charge, then [God] will not allow my mistakes to ruin [God's] work, but will make all things work together unto good."


Now that is an idea I can take solace in. I shall carry it with me this week as I try to find peace amidst some challenging and painful realities about my own deficiencies.

MLK's Dream

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! Although MLK is known for his role in a very particular social movement, this nobel laureate's ideas about social justice and change are clearly applicable to the many challenges we face in society today. I want to share a few provocative quotes from Dr. King, as well as what I think is an interesting (and spot-on) take on King's legacy from the NYTimes Sunday Review this weekend.

This must have been an incredible moment to experience.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

There are a lot of reasons why I choose to fight for social justice, even when I myself am fortunate (through my happenstance birth as an upper-middle-class white woman) not to face most of these injustices day-to-day, and this (above) is one of them.

"Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."

For a community night in November, Maria led our community in a great discussion about power (the community organizing group she works for is called POWER, and power is a critical part of community organizing). It's interesting to think about the power that each person has within his or her own community.


"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change."

Is complacency, then, a society's greatest enemy in the movement towards justice? Perhaps, and this is as much an incrimination of myself as it is of our nation's ability to sweep injustices under the rug when they don't directly impact the majority of us as individuals (which brings us back to the first quote...).

What injustice would Dr. King be non-violently working against if he were alive today? Nobel-prize-winning economist and NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman says, in sum, "Goodbye, Jim Crow, hello class system." After a discussion about the lack of mobility in societies of great economic inequality, his concluding paragraph speaks volumes:

"Mitt Romney says that we should discuss income inequality, if at all, only in 'quiet rooms.' There was a time when people said the same thing about racial inequality. Luckily, however, there were people like Martin Luther King who refused to stay quiet. And we should follow their example today. For the fact is that rising inequality threatens to make America a different and worse place -- and we need to reverse that trend to preserve both our values and our dreams." 

And, finally, just because it makes me think, one last King quote..."Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"

Labor Day: 'Bread and roses! Bread and roses!'

In honor of Labor Day, here's a background on the phrase "bread and roses." It's associated with the fight for fair wages for women, and in particular with a textile strike in 1912 in Massachusetts. The slogan comes from James Oppenheim's poem, where "bread and roses" refers to the call for both fair wages and dignified working conditions. It's pertinent as we think about labor and living wages today, but also as a background story to the name of the café I'm working in this year!

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!


So even though Bread and Roses Café is not just for women, the roots of the phrase make it clear that, just as the fight for fair wages was about more than the need for money, feeding the hungry is about more than the food itself -- it's about treating each person with dignity. "Hearts starve as well as bodies..."


In L.A., we celebrated the long weekend with the other JVs in the Southwest region with a party and a day at the beach. Casa Maura Clarke also visited the Getty Villa in Malibu, which houses J. Paul Getty's collection of Greek and Italian art.

 

Zuma Beach & the Getty Villa.

 

Gardens on the grounds of the villa.