This is Why I Occupy

This afternoon I and four other friends from seminary attended an event called Occupy Palm Sunday.  This event, sponsored by four congregations in Logan Square, talked about housing, immigration, healthcare, and food justice from a Christian community perspective.  United together, we sang songs, broke bread, and learned about different ways we can be involved in creating equality within our home.

I’ll be honest, in general I’m not someone who totally get’s the whole “Occupy” movement.  I admire the goal to help bring awareness to the difference between the 99% and the 1%, and my heart simmers with joy at knowing that people are trying to find away to work together.  However, the deepest recesses of my identity recognizes I am a planner.  When I look at the overall “Occupy” movement, I get overwhelmed with knowing how to move from information sharing to the next steps of problem solving.  I see the people camped in tents and want to know their plan, even as I recognize that for some “Occupiers” their main plan is to inform.

This past January when I was in El Salvador, I was granted access into the cathedral in San Salvador which was at the time occupied by a para-military group.  This cathedral is the Catholic Church’s Salvadoran epicenter, the place where the Archbishop of El Salvador resides and works.  This space is also important because the mausoleum of Archbishop Romero is found inside its basement.

The January occupation occurred by people who fought in the civil war.  The war had ended with the signing of the Peace Accords.  20 years later aspects of that agreement had not been upheld by the current government, resulting in ex-soldiers and their families starving to death.  They tried to negotiate change peacefully, but 20 years later were still starving.  So in January, with firepower, they forced the Archbishop out of the space and closed the cathedral off from the community.  The occupation prevented anyone from the community to enter to worship.  The occupation caused pilgrimages hoping to visit Romero to cease.  Yet I, a privileged US citizen, someone whose income would place me in the 1% if I was a Salvadoran, was invited into the cathedral where native citizens could not go.  Granted, there were shotguns pointed at me the entire time I took pictures in of the tomb, and I was unable to leave until I heard the para-military groups demands.  But the fact remains that because I came from a place of privilege I was safe in God’s house when people of the community were not.

Since that day, I look at the word “occupy” quite differently.  I now recognize that at any moment I could slide between the barriers between the 99% and the 1%.  At any moment I could be the oppressed or I could be the oppressor.  I could be the person who needs to be uplifted or I could be the person who steps on others as I rise the top.  That experience also showed me that sometimes the separation between church and state also have barriers that slide back and forth.  It was a para-military group that stopped the Salvadorans from worshiping in their Cathedral, and in the United States the limitations of our laws at times are what stop us from being able to provide care to all who need it.

This afternoon, a speaker mentioned that to live in Chicago, the average person would either need to work 81 hours a week at a minimum-wage job or get paid over $18 an hour at a 40-hour-a-week job to be able to afford housing.  I know I don’t get paid anywhere near $18 an hour at either of my jobs or even work close to 81 hours a week, and I consider myself secure in my middle class status.  Then again, I am fortunate enough to be in school and receiving scholarships, and my home parish helps to cover some of my tuition.  Where would I be if this was three years down the line and I was still at the same jobs at the same rate?  I know where I would be — homeless.

Knowing that the barrier between safety and insecurity can so easily slide back and forth for any of us, noticing that the separation between church and state is not as stable as I once thought, I need to have a plan.  I need to know that there is something secure to set my sights on, something that will stand the test of time and the roller-coaster of our economic system.

That something is the love of Christ, and my plan is never to forget that love.  It is through the love of Christ that I have people helping to support me while I am in seminary.  It is through the love of Christ that my income comes from my employment in serving a Christian parish and serving a Christian periodical.  It is through the love of Christ that I was able to car-pool with fellow students to worship in the square with four very different congregations. It is through the love of Christ that today each person who was able brought a few snacks to share and we not only fed the large crowd but had leftovers.

I “occupy” because the message of the good news of God’s love for us transcends the limitations of our barriers.  This message and sacred love is what gives us the fuel to keep striving for justice, learning how we can work with one another so that we all can feel as fortunate as the 1% of the community. I “occupy” because my God loves me so much that even in my darkest hours I am never alone, and this is a message too good to keep to myself.

This Palm Sunday, my occupation is one of praise and thanksgiving to the one who rode into our midst to transform our lives.

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Standing in Solidarity

Over the past few days in Chicago and on my news-feed there have been a lot of commentaries regarding the tragic  death of Trayvon Martin.  Most of them are crying out at the injustice of this situation.  People are crying out that even though this young man died in February we are just now seeing the shockwaves hit social media sites and blogs. People are crying out that the fight against racism seems to be a never-ending battle.  People are crying out that despite saying that we are counter-cultural, that we are for the innocent, Trayvon’s death still hasn’t been preached about from many pulpits.  There is a great grieving in our nation, and in our grief we can feel alone.

I was struck by this sense of loneliness when one of my best friends and a dear colleague wrote about here fear for her African-American brother as a white woman.  She spoke of how hard it is to be a white person and see the unnecessary persecution her brother experiences solely because of the color of his skin.  I felt her loneliness, because I myself grew up in a multi-racial household.  My brother was black, and often a pretty challenging person to be around.  He was challenging not because he was black, but because he was just a difficult person.  Because of the racism that is so prevalent but we try to ignore, I cannot talk about those challenges without the fear that it will give people an excuse to condemn an entire ethnic group.  I have told the story of my brother leaving my family many times, and more often than I would like to admit people ask me, “How does this affect how you feel about black people?”  I am tempted to counter and say, “You don’t talk to your dad anymore. Does this affect how you see white people?”  It would be futile to ask such questions because the answer is obvious.  The fact that I am asked such questions when they would not consider to ask such questions to themselves shows me how we still need to work on equality.

While I ache for the family of Trayvon Martin, my heart burns with a fever for those who die that are not named, for the unknown victims that live in our own backyards.  Another colleague wrote about her struggle with knowing she is treated different because she is white.  In that same post, she noted that in one week on the Southside of Chicago, the community I call home, 49 people were shot and 10 people were killed.  It burns within my heart that I do not know the names of those people, and that I am only learning of the name of Trayvon now.  I am reminded how weeks after the Chardon school shooting I still only know the names of two of the students who died.  I long for the strength of Archbishop Romero, who at the end of every homily read the names of everyone who was reported to have disappeared or died within his country.

I find it ironic that the story of Trayvon’s death has become a fixture in Chicago news the same weekend that the Hunger Games hit the theaters.  This is a movie based on a book that points out the horror that can befall a society at the hands of the unjust being in power.  I think about the thousands of people, myself included, who watched that movie, thinking of how fortunate I am that I do not live in a world where I am entered into a death lottery every time I prevent myself from starving.  However, when I hopped into my car and drove home from the theater, I passed the homeless people begging for change and didn’t even bat an eye.  I can’t help now but think of the 49 people whose names I do not know, wondering if those people where people I overlooked as I left a $12 movie to drive home in my comfy car.  I further wonder, is it easier for us to know Trayvon’s name instead of those 49 because he was a good kid from a good home?  Would we be marching protests if Trayvon had been begging for change instead of buying skittles?

There are no answers to such questions.  There are no easy answers to why we know the names of some victims and not others, why it is easier for us to be appalled at a movie instead of appalled at our own  inept actions.  I do not regret knowing the name Trayvon Martin, nor do I regret that our community is using our grief over his death to serve as an example to our society that there is still much work to be done.  In times like this, when we feel so alone in our inability to move forward, we need to look at a picture of a sweet boy and write his names on posters and blog articles.  We need to be in solidarity with his family because it forces us to become accountable to one another, to give a face and name to the 49 and thousands of others who are forgotten within our midst.

This Wednesday, March 28, a group of seminarians will be marching from the 11am chapel service of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago to a prayer vigil in our community.  All who would like to attend are asked to wear hoodies in solidarity of Trayvon, and those with collars are asked to wear collars with their hoodies in solidarity to all of the lives lost within our community.  I would so love to be at that vigil, but I have other work that needs to be done.  I have other responsibilities to help bring justice to my community, and as much as I would love to attend it would do no good for me to fight the battle but forget the war.  But I can be in solidarity even if I can’t be in the trenches.  I will wear my clerics with a hoodie and remember the lives that were lost too young.

Today I stand in solidarity with the loved ones of Trayvon Martin, and I pray for the strength to continue being in solidarity with all of my brothers and sisters who suffer at the hands of racism and homelessness.

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