Christmas Pack #8 - The Light Shines in the Darkness
Lighting New Paths
Table of Contents- Introduction
- Choosing Life in the Midst of World Crisis by Bill Price
- Knowing the Poor as Mother, Father, Sister, Child by Mitch Snyder
- Proclaiming Personhood in Prisons by Joan Gauker
- Living Through the Change in Life by Charlene Watts
Lighting New Paths
Introduction
Hope means more than just hanging on. It is the conscious decision to see the world in a different way than most others see it. To hope is to look through the eyes of faith to a future not determined by the oppressive circumstances of the present.... To dig our heels in and say no to the present madness is a good thing, but to walk a new path and say yes is a better thing. Jim Wallis Sojourners, April 1984
Many of the spiritual pioneers in our culture are precisely those who devote their energy to the most difficult problems facing society. Bill Price works for peace in a world that offers little hope for an end to war. Mitch Snyder houses and feeds the growing number of people who are written off by the mainstream because they are old, mentally, physically or socially disabled. Joan Gauker confronts the hopelessness of institutionalized inhumanity by befriending people in prison. Charlene Watts challenges the emphasis on consumption in our culture and struggles to make her own lifestyle reflect hopelessly idealistic values.
How can it be that these people who daily face such depressing situations as war, homelessness, imprisonment and human greed nevertheless remain hopeful? Each of these individuals describes a hard won second birth that has led to a different perspective on life. In Mitch Snyder's case, the second birth came suddenly. He "woke up one morning" and realized that he must change his life. For Bill Price, the second birth has been gradual, the result of a lifetime of contact with Christ's teaching. Joan Gauker's awakening came in the wake of a shattering personal crisis: her young son was sent to prison. Charlene Watts endured an intense five year education about the realities of global inequity.
In each case, the second birth has brought with it a new vision. Not an airy, hallucinatory vision, but a simple, concrete vision of what the world could be if it would be as it should be. For each of these people, holding fast to this vision seems to bring it closer to reality, not only in their own lives but also in the lives of those with whom they share their work and insights.
These people are exceptional people. But they are exceptional because they have acted faithfully in response to their experiences, not because they are somehow saintly, more gifted or more radical than others. They are fueled by the realization that they are participating in Christ's incarnation by contributing what they can to make the world more just, more peaceful and more loving.
Christ, too, was born in a troubled time. He was a poor, small, insignificant babe among powerful kings and fierce enemies. Nevertheless, his message changed the world, and continues to change it through the lives of those who light new paths by following in his footsteps.
Choosing Life in the Midst of World Crisis
by Bill Price
As we move ever more deeply into a state of crisis in our nation and world, many are finding hope by choosing life in this fragile passage. Even though we are confronted with a darkness that will overwhelm much of the world if we don't change our course as a nation, the Good News is that within this precarious present is a unique opportunity for creative change: we can act for life in the midst of this great struggle.
My own hope abounds when I recognize my partnership through the Spirit with many other persons and groups throughout the world who are also acting for life. Two such people are my wife, Betty Price, and our young friend Jennifer Atlee. Betty, sixty seven, brings the wisdom and compassion of many years of dedication to her work. Jennifer, twenty two, brings the energy and dreams of youth, along with the intellectual, spiritual and experiential sensitivity necessary to realize these dreams. Together they represent a powerful fusion of complementary forces seasoned commitment and uncompromising determination, clarity and courage, insight and vision which can turn this time of darkness into a time of profound global transformation.
The focus of our work together has been Central America, where we seek to join Christ in putting an end to the growing disaster brought on by U.S. policies and actions. About two years ago Betty led the initiative to make the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C. a sanctuary church, providing safety for El Salvadoran citizens whose lives are in danger in their own country. Her insight into the importance of living the political dimension of her Christian faith began in 1938, when she spent time as an exchange student in Hitler's Germany. There she saw firsthand how rapidly the demonic elements of unrestrained power could overtake situations. Her commitment to life has taken the form of a profound love not only for her own three children and nine grandchildren, but also for the hundreds of children she works with at the Family Place Mission for inner city babies. Many of these children are Central American refugees, but ultimately they represent all the children of the world. Her desire to provide safe harbor for refugees is yet another manifestation of this love. Since our offer of sanctuary for Central Americans fleeing death has become a reality, we have experienced great joy in having taken a political step for life. Our sense of partnership with Christ has deepened.
jenny came to us in preparation for a six month vigil on the Nicaragua Honduras border with the support team of Witness for Peace. We worked together for several weeks as the Church of the Saviour became a sanctuary church. In May of 1984, jenny left to take her place in Central America, despite the threat of U.S. military invasion through the border areas of Nicaragua. jenny's courage is fueled by her faith in the profound power for change brought by the poor, oppressed and suffering people of the world, particularly those freed by the Spirit of Christ to choose life. By standing on the border with the Nicaraguan people and Christians from the U.S. and around the world, Jenny is testifying with her whole being to her faith that God in his grace will bring a change in U.S. Central American relations, that we will choose life instead of death. She has risked her own life to stand for this belief.
Inspired and strengthened by jenny's witness and the witness of so many others like her, we have intensified our work with Central American refugees living in exile in Washington, D.C. and have begun to work with other churches providing sanctuary throughout the U.S. When Jenny returns (God willing) this Advent season, we will share what we have learned from our different perspectives with church communities all over the United States.
Despite the difference in our ages, the focus of our involvement, and the tone of our witness, we have begun to find a powerful common ground. We know that life-giving actions are essential whether it be caring for refugee children, offering sanctuary, or non violently resisting U.S. military intervention in Central America. We believe that the present march toward disaster is due to a failure to understand that we live in a global village of 4 billion people, many of whom are experiencing a newly liberated spirit. We see in this situation an unparalleled opportunity for evolution toward a more equitable, humane and life giving society for our nation and our world. We affirm both the freedom of individuals and the responsibility to care for all the poor, the oppressed, and always first, the children. We dream together about the many life giving steps that could transform national and international "security" systems to systems for peace and justice. And we commit ourselves to being partners in taking the specific steps necessary to bring about the transformations we share in our dreams.
In working together, we are coming to know the miraculous truth of Christ's victory over the corrupt motives and despairing fears that drive our nation's obsession with more and more weapons. In working toward peace and justice, we feel that we are earning our membership in the reality of Christ's incarnation.
I have come to this stance through a transformation in my personal values made possible by a long and continuing journey as a Christian lay person. I have known firsthand the spiritual emptiness of life lived in the competitive climb up the ladder for power and affluence. Now I am learning to accept my gift as one who can recognize and encourage spiritual pioneers like my wife Betty and our friend jenny as we work to evolve the new world we long for.
As we realize that we are connected with a multitude of others who are choosing life, our hope soars. God's grace is breaking in all around us. We know that help is truly on the way and we are very hopeful.
Dr. William Price, 65, is the director of World Peacemakers, founded in the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C. He worked with the Department of Defense for thirty-three years, and spent eleven years as director of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. He has been an active Christian layperson all his adult life. Betty K. Price, sixty seven, is a cofounder of the Family Place Mission in Washington, D.C. for inner city babies. She led the Church of the Saviour in providing sanctuary for El Salvadoran refugees. Jennifer Atlee, 22, is a political science major specializing in Latin affairs and the daughter of an Episcopal priest.
Knowing the Poor as Mother, Father, Sister, Child
by Mitch Snyder
The Community for Creative Non Violence (CCNV), of which I am a member, operates the nation's largest emergency shelter. We serve around 2,000 people a day, providing food, shelter, clothing, and medical care. We house 700 to 800 people nightly in a previously abandoned, federally owned building.
We are often asked to show people around the shelter. Usually they arrive at dinner time, as 600 or 700 people line up in the cavernous dining room. The response is often: "Look at them all!" They are stunned by the sight of so many elderly, physically or mentally disabled people. They sense the depth of frustration and the anger that permeates the atmosphere, and they are frightened. They feel both crushed and repelled by the enormity of the pain and the injustice of it all.
At some point, most people ask, with a look of utter incredulity, how community members deal with all of this, and how we keep from burning out. Nearly always, it is clear that they don't believe that they could do what we are doing.
For most people, the underlying assumption is that we are somehow different, or better, and able to do what they cannot do.
The truth is that I don't know why I woke up in a cold sweat one morning fourteen or fifteen years ago, convinced that my work as a management consultant on Madison Avenue, the life I was building and the values I embraced were, while highly conventional, wrong. I just did. Even in a world as imperfect as ours, conscience, or, as Gandhi called it, "that small inner voice", can still be heard. And, with the grace of God, we can begin to follow its dictates more fully.
Sometimes it seems that the only real decision I had to make was the first one: to let go of who I was for the vague promise of what I could and should become. It was that decision that led me to share my life more fully with people in need. The sharing, in turn, is what has made all the rest possible.
Some years ago when our community committed itself to the creation of adequate and accessible shelter, to be offered in an atmosphere of reasonable dignity to every person who needs and wants it, homelessness was not an item on anyone's agenda. We had, in fact, as a people, constructed a very solid wall between ourselves and those with no place to lay their heads. Our carefully built mechanisms of defense, both physical and psychic, erected on a foundation of ignorance and misconception, are themselves a product of our distance from suffering's reality. While those walls have begun to come down, the process has been neither easy nor painless. Those who painted a more honest and accurate picture of the situation threatened comfortable and comforting stereotypes and images, and were not always warmly received.
When we read editorials calling us extortionists and moral "terrorists" because we dare demand that churches act on their special responsibility to shelter the homeless, or when we bend under the great weight of human need and misery that surrounds us, what sustains us is always the same: our proximity to the poor.
Why don't we break in the face of such overwhelming odds? Why do we remain confident and optimistic, when losing faith seems to be the norm? For us, the poor are not an abstraction. They have names and faces and personalities. They are known to us and we to them. As we have come to know the poor and the destitute as human beings, we have grown to love them. How unoriginal: we must love one another.
Which of us would allow our mother or father or our son or daughter to freeze or starve to death if we could possibly help them? Which of us would not break down doors, if necessary, to bring our loved ones inside? Which of us would not steal, if we had to, if they were starving? It is the already huge and rapidly widening gulf between people that is primarily responsible for most of the unnecessary suffering in the world.
The defense of those we love, who suffer horribly in nearly absolute innocence, has forced us to transcend our own limitations and to discover within ourselves a previously unknown strength and decency. It is in our nearness to the victims of injustice and oppression that our salvation, and theirs, lies.
In beginning to discover our own decency and our own potential, we have come to understand better that each of us has an infinite capacity for good. Given half a chance, all of us can change and grow. That is why we have been able to proceed with confidence in the face of nearly overwhelming opposition. Thoreau was quite correct when he spoke of the invincibility of good. What has been well started can never be stopped. Not when it is the truth. If we believe in the rightness of our cause, we are assured of its eventual victory.
In beginning to live and work among our nation's untouchables, we begin to see the world in a new and more authentic way. Illusions are quickly stripped away. Priorities change. The distinction between need and desire grows increasingly clear. It is a simple truth: we cannot begin to comprehend what we have never seen, nor can we hope to change what we do not understand.
We push all the wrong buttons, and we walk all the wrong paths. Understandably, the situation continues to deteriorate, deepening our frustration and sense of futility. We feel increasingly powerless, seemingly in the grip of forces and events beyond our comprehension or our control. It is a very vicious circle. Our society's defense mechanisms are the most sophisticated and effective the world has ever seen. That is why we are on the very edge of annihilation. And, while we do our best to complicate and make abstract what is painfully simple and concrete, the truth is still the truth: it is only in loving our neighbors and reaching out to them in their need that we will begin to regain our right mind. Try as we might, we simply cannot love a God we cannot see, if we cannot love the neighbor that we can see.
Mitch Snyder, 40, has been a member of the Community for Creative Non Violence in Washington, D.C. for eleven years. Before that he was a management consultant on Madison Avenue. He also spent three years in prison, which he described as a good monastic experience. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.
Proclaiming Personhood in Prisons
by Joan Gauker
"CONVICTS" once a faceless, nameless mass to unacquired individual personhood when suddenly four years ago our 20 year old son became one!
Those were the darkest, most hopeless days of my life seeing our young son in handcuffs and guarded, watching his soulful look from behind the ugly steel bars and glass through which we could talk but not touch. Those times were almost unbearable. Tears flowed constantly. We hurt terribly. We hurt for our son's pain, and we hurt also for ourselves. We experienced shame and guilt because our son is an extension of us and to some, he and we were the same. We learned how a whole family suffers from community judgment when a family member is imprisoned.
Through God's grace our son's imprisonment was short. Also, through God's grace our family was blessed by the love of fellow Christians who ministered to us during that difficult time, strengthened us and helped us hope.
But we couldn't forget the pain, anguish and hopeless feelings we fought daily, knowing our experience was not unlike that of the families of the 430,000 people in prisons in this country who also are torn apart by the separation and shame of incarceration.
And so, probably because of the Christian love given us, which we now feel a need to extend to others who hurt as we and our son did rather than because of our son's actual prison experience my husband, Richard, and I are now volunteers at a state maximum security prison.
How we got to the front gate of this 30 foot high gray walled prison and kept going back though often feeling unwelcomed by staff and guards is a complicated God inspired (and God engineered) story. However, we believe God led us there, with others, to be reconcilers.
Inside and outside the walls we find a tremendous need for love and reconciliation and we are often overextended by this. But, just when we feel we can't be stretched any farther, the love comes back to us in a handmade Christmas card or the broad warm smile of a man who has found a friend and we are renewed.
Armed with God's love and a belief we CAN be reconcilers and healers in the midst of violence, we befriend guards, staff, families and other volunteers with the same vigor as we befriend inmates and we are befriended. With genuine caring, we work to remove the hate which often builds among the confined, their families and the keepers. We don't judge (this is the hardest to do) and we respect the personhood of each. We let people know we care about them; will help; and will pray for them just as folks did for us four years ago.
The complexities of the system and the people problems it produces often leave us weary. But, we continue doing what we can, knowing that to do something loving (no matter how small) in today's harsh penal system is far better than to do nothing. And, we are refreshed by such expressions as the joy of one man when we remembered his birthday with a card the only one he received; the deep appreciation of a group of men when we shared part of Christmas Day with them in worship and visits; the gratitude when we visited and wrote to a man whose family lived too far to visit; the hugs from the family we were able to help spiritually and emotionally, giving them hope when their son went to prison; the amazement of the men Richard (a literacy tutor) is teaching to read; and the pride of the men who are learning some journalism from me.
To see these moments one by one and know the endless scope of God's love, helps overcome the complexities of the system. For each inmate in whom we can develop self esteem and love, and for whom his/her goals are redirected, there is one less person likely to violate our safety in society when released from prison.
In doing the things which take Richard and me into prison three or four times a week, we've had to work to remove many fears. (Being called by God is one thing, following is another!) For instance, we feared being "used." Then, through God's help, we learned to say in our hearts, "use us!" as we utter a prayer that seeds of love will be planted in the process. We continue to be concerned for our personal safety, so we try to be alert and careful. We learned we cannot be immobilized by this fear because God is with us inside the prison, too. We sometimes have fear of rejection by friends and our extended family because of our ministry. When it happens, we have Christ's command to us in Matt. 25 to sustain us.
Also, it's easy to feel inadequate in such an overwhelming situation. But we think about how inadequate, overwhelmed and thwarted the inmate and his/her family feel in such a legally complicated, violent and impersonal place particularly since most are poor, often uneducated and without resources. If all we do is care, smile, share by letter, phone or visits, we are ministering. The ministry can be THAT simple and be life giving.
I believe God wants me to use my talents in prisons to bring love, peace, understanding, freedom and joy to His children there. That belief keeps me there. I also believe my (our) being there fosters wholeness rather than alienation, a factor which ultimately makes society a better, safer place for us and our children. We go into prisons with the same desire to provide community and improve the quality of life for the people there as do the volunteers at a hospital, school or nursing home because we believe all these institutions are extensions of our community.
Lock up convicts and forget them?
NO! One of "them" was our son, now serving in his own Christian ministry because of love given him while in prison, and each one of "them" is someone's loved one. But more than that, they are each our brothers and sisters to love in Christ's name not a nameless, faceless mass.
Joan Gauker, 48, is the volunteer coordinator for the Graterford State Correctional Institute and a member of the Alternatives Board of Directors. She has won awards for her work as a journalist and news photographer in the Washington, D.C. area and edits a monthly newsletter for the Graterford Correctional Institute. She was active in the Priority group of the L.C.A., has served in local political offices, and worked for the passage of the E.R.A. She lives in Norristown, Pa., is married and has four grown children.
Living Through the Change in Life
by Charlene Watts
It's one thing to have your life upended by hormonal changes in your forties; that's " natural." It's quite another thing to experience a resuscitation of atrophied brain cells through an encounter with new knowledge to have one's mind "blown." For me, that was the life changing experience of my forties. And it was neither natural nor painless. Gary Gunderson gave a good description of my experience in his article on being born again and again and again:
God's grace constantly provokes us into new births. Amazingly, we always seem to be caught by surprise. "Finally," we say to ourselves, "I am a mature Christian. I am grown and balanced and discerning. I am at peace." And then the undesired, unsought, but utterly predictable shock comes. Down we go again through the birth canal, resistant but eager, reborn in a new way, gasping for air, blinded by brighter light than we have ever known, chilled by a vulnerability to a world we did not know existed, alive like a newborn child in a new world. How could we have ever mistaken our previous existence as life. at all? We are once more born again. God is never finished with us. Relentlessly, God pursues us and births us again and again and again (SEEDS, April 1981).
I felt as though I had lived Paul's call to "be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may find the will of God."
It all started when I read the first Alternate Christmas Catalog. How well I found myself described in its statements about the harried mother role at Christmas! Other articles raised probing questions about the effects of some of our family's long entrenched celebrative traditions. I realized that I was a "consumer addict," letting others dictate my traditions; but, at the same time I saw how bound I was by our consumption oriented lifestyle, I also saw the possibility of liberation an alternative way. I grasped it and began the journey toward humanizing our style of celebration. We still have a long way to go, but we have begun to make our celebrations a way of affirming people. We have changed our orientation from greed to need.
About the same time I came across the Alternate Christmas Catalog, I took a part time job as a Presbyterian Hunger Action Enabler. I spent the next five years searching for the knowledge I needed to function effectively in my job. What I learned blew all the cobwebs out of my brain and tested every ounce of my faith.
I realized that at age forty four I actually knew very little about the world. The data on global injustice and America's role in it totally challenged my understanding. I was overwhelmed by the pervasiveness of systemic, institutionalized evil. I woke up to the fact that the world's rule book did not include the basic tenets of the Christian faith. Especially missing was an acknowledgment of the value of each human creature. When I realized my own complicity in the perpetuation of injustice, I felt both guilty and outraged. I confessed my own hypocrisy. How naive I had been. I had many attacks of the "Elijah Complex": "I, only I, am left, O Lord... !" I was frequently on the precipice of burn out. These intense emotions drove me to wrestle with my faith.
Out of this struggle, a new person emerged one who is, I hope, more open to God and to other human beings. The concept of justice has taken on a new meaning, as has the concept of shalom.
As I reflect on this turbulent and difficult period, I can see three things that kept me from succumbing to the exhaustion and cynicism of "burn out." The first is holding a vision. I firmly believe that "without a vision, the people perish." Articulating a vision of the kind of world one wants and working to make it tangible is the foundation of my hope (and sanity!). This vision serves to guide my short term and my long-term decisions. The vision must be very specific. One must picture the kind of city, community structure, housing and community life that seems best to reflect one's basic values. These values in turn guide the use of time, money and resources. A specific vision is crucial to the business of doing justice over the long haul. It means not only saying "no" to the drummer by which world marches, but saying "yes" to a different drummer. Jurgen Moltmann's words have meant a great deal to me: Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it... ; for the good of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present.
Behind my vision is the reaffirmation of my faith in a God whose grace is my only security. I am free to "do justice" because I do not find my security in my country, motherhood or apple pie. I can take risks and be "a fool for Christ." Freedom based on acceptance of God's grace is a great empowering force for confronting injustice. It also keeps one from taking herself too seriously!
Balance has also become a key word to me. I tell myself to take time to "smell the roses" and hug my grandchild. I'm still not too successful at it, and at times my self discipline lags. Nevertheless, I'm convinced that I need to laugh as well as to cry over God's world. So I read Dr. Seuss, put on clown make up, and nourish some frivolous growing edges! Taking time with people is a healthy corrective to my all too often hectic pace. Having a grandchild restores my sense of awe and makes me celebrate the wonder of life.
Finally, I know that faithful living needs community group which not only supports me but holds me accountable for the vision to which I say I am committed. This is hard. My experience suggests that few of us are willing to invest the sustained effort necessary to give birth to such a community and nurture it. We have been raised to be so damnably individualistic and self-centered. My husband and I are still working on this issue. I especially long for a group where lifestyle decisions could be lived out more faithfully. Communities like Koinonia, Sojourners, and Church of the Saviour are instructive, inspirational models for this part of my vision.
Having just turned fifty (!) I leave the forties behind, very grateful in retrospect for what those years meant, but hopeful that the fifties will bring fewer rebirths. After all, menopause will be enough!
In 1987, Charlene Watts has worked for 20 years as a volunteer. She served as Hunger Action Enabler for the Presbytery of Western Reserve in Lakewood, Ohio. She has been the director of the Lakewood Christian Service Center which offers emergency food and job assistance. She is a graduate of Wooster and McCormick Theological Seminary with an MA in Christian Education, and the mother of five children. She is also a former member of the Alternatives Board of Directors.
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