Spirit On The Margins

Viterbo University, a Catholic University in LaCrosse Wisconsin, with Franciscan roots, has a masters degree in Servant Leadership.  They have formed a cohort group that has been meeting in the Twin Cities.

Viterbo Univ Servant Leadership 

The pictures at the heading of this post are from a class yesterday, in which the Servant Leadership program course on prophetic leadership invited Faithful Fools and City House to present.  The Faithful Fools is a charitable and educational organization created in 1998 to be present with and to address the existence of poverty in the midst of material wealth. They do ministry in the Tenderloin District in San Francisco.  They are in the Twin Cities this week to conduct street retreats and put on some plays about the homeless. Faithful Fools web site

You will notice that people in the pictures are wearing funny court jester hats.  The Faithful Fools see themselves as playing the role of court jester in society.  Thus the hats.

It was an engaging two hours.  The Faithful Fools were articulate and passionate.  As a community, The Faithful Fools are very relational, organic, and trusting that God will bring them whatever they need.  They move in new directions based on who shows up to be a part of them, and they commit to meeting each others’ needs - and somehow that is always enough, even as they live among the poorest of the poor.  They are definite examples of prophetic leaders - so effective in telling the stories that make up their collective story.

The Viterbo University faculty and learners were very attentive, curious, and open. They were so hospitable. They asked about overcoming the fear of walking with the poor and what impact the work of the Faithful Fools has on both persons on the margins and on those taking street retreats. This is the only Servant Leadership masters degree anywhere in the country. I was struck by the vibrancy of their vision.

I talked about the challenges of following one’s call and the financial cost it can often entail.  I divulged that God has been making it clear in my prayer time lately that my path to an abundant life comes through impermenance and insecurity.  Both the Faithful Fools and Viterbo University’s Servant Leadership program understand what I mean by that and the countercultural nature of that commitment.

I received a call on Monday this past week.  It was Kay Jorgensen of the Faithful Fools from San Francisco. “Could I meet with them today, before they left Minneapolis to go back to California tonight?” I had heard about them from the Franciscan sisters at the Sabbath House in south Minneapolis. So, I jumped at the chance.

The Faithful Fools is a charitable and educational organization created in 1998 to be present with and to address the existence of poverty in the midst of material wealth. They do ministry in the Tenderloin District.

I am inspired by some of the language they use on their web site:

“We are called to a ministry of presence that acknowledges each human’s incredible worth. Aware of our judgments we seek to meet people where they are, through the arts, education, advocacy and accompaniment. We participate in shattering myths about those living in poverty, seeing the light courage, intelligence, strength and creativity of the people we encounter. We discover on the streets our common humanity through which celebration, community and healing occur.”

We speak of Faithful Fools Street Ministry as being a “practice”.  It is a practice of love and service.  It is at the heart of our presence with people and in a neighborhood that are labeled “bad” and “unsafe”; and of providing a space for the artists’ soul to discover its expression.    

Rachel Naomi Remen has written in her book, My Grandfather’s Blessings, a reflection that inspires us in our practice of service.  We share a portion of it with you.    

“Service rests on the basic premise that the nature of life is sacred…Fundamentally, helping, fixing, and service are ways of seeing life.  When you help you see life as weak.  When you fix, you see life as broken.  When you serve, you see life as whole.  From the perspective of service, we are all connected.  All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy…Service goes beyond expertise.  Service is another way of life.  Service is a relationship between equals…In helping, we may find a sense of satisfaction; in serving, we have an experience of gratitude… When we serve, we discover that life is holy…Service is closer to generosity than it is to duty…Over the long run, fixing and helping are draining but service is renewing.  When you serve, your work itself will sustain you, renew you, and bless you, often over many years.”

Faithful Fools web site

I was really inspired by this meeting I had with both Kay and the Faithful Fools outreach minister, Alex Darr.

This ministry leads street retreats in San Francisco and in other cities around the country. These retreats sound much like the inner city pilgrimages that we at City House began leading last fall. Meditation is an important part of their practice, like it is at City House.

But, I noticed a difference. They really push the envelope even further in being in solidarity with the poor. For example, they will come into a community they have never been in and live on the streets for several days so they can get an insider’s view before designing a street retreat in that locale. In their street retreats in San Francisco, they offer an option for people to go on seven day retreats, where those on retreats are invited to live on the streets for that full time. I thought City House was out on the edge, but this really challenged my own understanding of what is possible.

At any rate, I was really impressed. The Faithful Fools will be conducting street retreats in Minneapolis and St Paul Saturday, May 10. As part of that effort, they will be putting on a play on Wednesday, May 7, about one person’s experience of being on a street retreat. We will be supporting them and helping them in their effort. I am looking forward to it. We will keep you all posted.

Based on true events and filmed in Rwanda with genocide survivors as cast and crew, Beyond The Gates (a movie) tells their shared story of humanity in the most inhumane circumstances.

In April 1994, a secondary school in Kigali, Rwanda called the Ecole Technique Officielle (ETO) being used as a UN army base, became a refugee camp.  Belgian UN troops, school children, NGO workers and over 2,500 Tutsi citizens and their sympathizers took refuge against a raging genocide while the Hutu militia, clad with machetes, clamored outside the school gates.

Five days later, the UN troops withdrew from the school, taking the whites with them.  Within hours, almost all of the Rwandans were dead.

Beyond The Gates is about the choices we make when we are free to choose.  In the tragic circumstances of the Ecole Technique Officielle, would you have left with the UN troops on the fifth day or would you have stayed?

This is a powerful movie. One of the main characters, when faced with the choice of fleeing to safety or staying for an almost certain death, turns to another character and says, “You asked me where God is in the midst of all this suffering.  The answer is right here. I can’t ever remember feeling God’s love so profoundly. My heart and soul are here. I feel like if I left, I would never find them again.”

His decision and actions are so Christ like - very inspirational.

Beyond The Gates, the movie

Majora Carter is a passionate young woman in the South Bronx intent on holding back polluters who target neighborhoods like hers, and bringing back the green. In this video, she makes the point that race and class play themselves out in all areas of life, including decisions on where power plants and waste facilities are located. In New York City, the South Bronx has the lowest ratio of parks to people.

Majora Carter Video 

Majora Carter has led a marvelous transformation of the South Bronx that includes more dedicated park and green spaces.  She has an inspirational call on her life.

After a potential violent confrontation between two participants in a spirituality group I was leading (see posting entitled, ”Welcoming Prayer”), I came back the next week with some thinking from a book entitled, Jesus and Nonviolence, A Third Way, by Walter Wink.  Yet once again, it is a very evocative book.

I read this quote from scripture to the group. (everyone present was Christian)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for any eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evil-doer.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.” (Matthew 5:38-41)

Walter Wink goes on to say “there are three general responses to evil: passivity, violent opposition, and militant non-violence articulated by Jesus himself….Jesus abhors both passivity and violence as responses to evil.”

“Why then does he counsel these already humiliated people to turn the other cheek? Because this action robs the oppressor of the power to humiliate.  The person who turns the other cheek is saying, in effect, ‘Try again.  Your first blow failed to achieve its intended effect.  I deny you the power to humiliate me.  I am a human being just like you. Your status does not alter that fact. You cannot demean me.”

“Then the oppressor has been forced, against his will, to regard this subordinate as an equal human being.  The powerful person has been stripped of his power to dehumanize the other.”

“Why then does Jesus counsel them to give over their inner garment (their cloak) as well?  This would mean stripping off all their clothing and marching out of court stark naked!”

“Under the apartheid regime in South Africa, the authorities had for a long time sought a way to destroy a particular shantytown, without success.  Then one day, after most of the men and women had left for work, the army arrived.  The soldiers announced that the few women there had five minutes to gather their things and then the bulldozers would commence to work. The women, perhaps sensing the prudery of the farm boys who largely made up the army, stood in front of the bulldozers and stripped off all their clothes. The army fled.”

“Why would Jesus advise them to walk the second mile?  Imagine then the soldier’s suprise when, at the next mile marker, he reluctantly reaches to assume his pack and say, ‘Oh, let me carry it another mile.’ Normally he has to coerce his kinsmen to carry his pack, and now you do it cheerfully and will not stop!  You have taken back the power of choice. The soldier is thrown off balance by being deprived of the predictability of your response.”

So, the group of participants talked about it that night. It was hard for them to see. But, I couldn’t blame them. Our society doesn’t operate this way. To them, this seemed really foreign thinking, just as it does to the rest of us.

We brought it down to a practical level. One of them brought up a recent incident on a bus, where someone kept staring at him, as if trying to provoke a fight, and then followed him off the bus trying to taunt him.  Eventually, the bus driver called police.  With some creativity, we came up with the idea that he could have disarmed this individual with humor. He could have said, “I apologize, I must really look ugly to you for you to stare at me like that. I will try to do a better job next time of looking nicer before getting on the bus.” We all laughed but also agreed that it might have made for a different ending than a call to the police.

From left to right: John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Jim Wallis, and Barak Obama.

Krista Tippett hosted Rev Jim Wallis on her Speaking of Faith program today.  Jim is known as a progressive evangelical and author of God’s Politics: Why the Right Got It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.

God’s Politics a blog by Jim Wallis and friends

I loved this book when I read it.  He wrote it after the 2004 election.  Jim Wallis articulates what I have always believed - that God is not a Republican or a Democrat. 

He contends on Krista’s show that as a nation we are on the edge of a new great awakening about the poor, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Martin Luther King in the struggle over civil rights.  Jim contends that revivals of social justice are not possible without a revival of faith.  He quotes Britian’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown as telling him that we have everything we need today to end poverty.  We just lack the moral and political will to do it. And, he then looked at Wallis and said, “that’s your job.”

He goes on to say that Martin Luther King and others like him never endorsed candidates. Instead they started movements by building a base outside of parties and challenging them for their endorsement.  They held each party accountable.

“If our Gospel is not Good News to the poor, it is not the Gospel”, says Wallis.  “We don’t know poor people. They are segregated. Until poor people are our friends, there can be no revival.” 

I really resonate with these last statements. City House is apolitical and it is not part of our mission to create or support some kind of revival. But, we are about creating relationships with the poor, in ways that nurture mutual spiritual growth and transformation.  I truly believe we are part of some kind of movement of God’s work in the world. I just don’t always know what it is.

Other opinions out there about Jim Wallis?