"While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart."

I find sanctuary whenever I leave Kensington. I don’t expect to have to step over needles, see people passed-out drunk on the sidewalk, or break up a fight. And, gratefully, most of the time I am granted the reprieve. But the other day I was at Wawa (a Philadelphia-area convenience store) and greeted one of our regular guests who was sitting outside begging for money. He didn’t recognize me at first, but once I smiled, a big smile crossed his face along with a little wave.
I went in, got my Caffeine-Free Diet Coke and some cash from the ATM, and upon my exiting the store, I was instantly transported back to 2441 Kensington Avenue. John, the guest, was engaged in a tussle with another man who was taking swings. Amidst the blows, the Wawa customer was yelling profanities surrounding derogatory racist and homeless comments. To water it down, “This guy is always out here begging for money! Why doesn’t he just get a job!?” To be fair to the customer, John is always out there begging for money, but the violent reaction to a humble request for some spare change seemed unwarranted. This type of incident isn’t unusual, in fact, crimes against the homeless are on the rise, especially in our neighborhood. But I didn’t expect it outside of my community.
In typical St. Francis Inn fashion, I began calmly talking John out of the fight, hoping that I would be able to diffuse at least John’s defensive attack. Just as I started the intervention, a SWAT Team, along with 3 police officers (one of which that was undercover) came running outside and abrasively separated the two men. I snuck away, secretly grateful that I didn’t have to work through that fight on my own, but unsettled by the violent and harsh manner with which the situation was dealt. Suddenly I understood the value of a peaceful presence and the pacifistic way the Team handles such situations.
Maybe after 3 years, St. Francis has taught me something after all.

Locavores

The average food commodity item travels 1,500 miles before it gets to your plate. From the bread you eat to the strawberries that top your shortcake, it is highly likely that, unless you went to your local farmer’s market, your “fresh” food traveled at least half way across the country to fill your belly.

There are many issues wrapped up in the way our food is grown, processed, managed and shipped. When we go to the grocery store, we don’t think about how, despite the foot of snow on the ground outside, we are still getting fresh strawberries or lettuce, or even though our local farmers haven’t even seen the ground since December. We neglect to consider the many additives that are included in our fresh foods to toughen them up for their journey, and we don’t realize that what we think are fresh apples or watermelon were actually harvested a minimum of five days before and are the social darwinism champions that have survived their journey across the country or ocean.

The “locavore” movement is designed to not only revitalize small farm owners and local businesses, but also to shed light on the plausibility of eating locally. Since the early 1990s, Americans have had the ability to get any type of fruit, vegetable, grain or meat whenever they wanted, regardless of the season. With efficient technology and transportation, we can obtain asparagus in November, fresh spinach in January, and green beans in February, even if it costs more. We’ve lost sight of patience and delayed gratification. Our sense of urgency and demand for satisfying our cravings is depleting our own bank accounts, but also the social capital of the United States. Our small farms are at risk of losing land and their livelihood; the carbon emissions from the distribution of produce are polluting the atmosphere; and the very soil we walk on is being compromised all for our taste buds.

For those with the patience to read, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver is an excellent memoir of a family that chose to become locavores for a year. It is informative and anecdotal and provides some personal insight into a life shift that could replenish what has been lost.

If you don’t have the time or like to read, “Food, Inc.” is a film that, less endearingly but no less informatively, exposes the globalization of the food industry in the United States and across the world. It focuses primarily on the meat industry but the gut-wrenching command for change is the same.

This is simply a broad brush stroke of locavores and the movement to eat locally. Do some research, discover local farms and farmers markets in your area so you can contribute to your local economy. It’ll take time and patience, but the pay-off will be big.

My Trip to Jail

Visiting somebody in jail always has a sense of excitement and anxiety for me. Each of my experiences have been vastly different, ranging from an “official visit” where I was allowed a minimally invasive search, unlimited visiting time, and private space for the inmate and I to talk, to being rejected for the supposed presence of drugs on my body.

Last year, my first visit to the Philadelphia Correctional Facilities was marked by a feeling of loss of identity and individuality. I was treated like a number, shuffled through and processed, and expected to follow the same rules as the inmates. No crossing your legs, you must sit straight forward, no touching, no jewelry, closed-toed shoes only, no revealing clothing. You are invasively patted down (sometimes a few times), drug tested, sent through a metal detector, and are under the watchful eye of the guard as you sit in a large room with any other inmate receiving a visit and their guest. “1072984, 15 minutes... 1072984, 10 minutes... 1072984, 5 minutes...” are warning signs that I will soon leave the cinderblock-walled, stale room, back to my freedom and the inmate is ushered back to her cell, left to absorb the visit as I may be the only person that goes to visit her this week, this month, or at all. When I approach the locked door, I give the guard an anticipatory look, waiting for the loud buzz and click to permit me through, I am patted down again, retrieve my earrings, nose ring, watch, slips of paper, and even my belt from the locker, and get back into the inmate shuttle van that takes me back to my car.

I can’t help but think that if that is how the visitors are treated, how are the inmates treated? Like criminals? Well, I guess that’s probably expected. But what is the rationale behind our prison system? Punitive or Rehabilitative? There are two camps at work here, that people have done a crime, they should pay the time. Lock them away, deprive them of every luxury so as to deter them from ever committing another crime again. The other ideology is seen as rehabilitative, seeing the inherent potential for good in each inmate and providing them with the tools and training to make better decisions on the outside.

Given my de-humanizing experiences, I would venture to say that at least Philadelphia tends more towards the former, resulting in shockingly high recidivism rates, 68% of men and 58% of women re-committing the same crime that landed them in jail in the first place. We simply cannot expect people to make better choices if they are not educated and provided the opportunity to work through their issues in a most therapeutic and individualized manner.

This is Joan Chittister's modern-day version of the Apostle's Creed, re-vamped to appeal to who we are as Christians and what we are called to be. It's a bit long, but stick with it, it's really good!!!

I believe in one God

who made us all

and whose divinity infuses all of life

with the sacred.

I believe in the multiple revelations

of that God

alive in every human heart,

expressed in every culture,

and found in all the wisdoms

of the world.

I believe

that Jesus Christ,

the unique son of God,

is the face of God

on earth

in whom we see best

the divine justice,

divine mercy,

and divine compassion

to which we are called.

I believe in the Christ

who is One in being with the Creator

and who shows us the presence of God

in everything that is

and calls out the sacred in ourselves.

I believe in Jesus, the Christ,

who leads us to the fullness

of human stature,

to what we were meant to become

before all time

and for all other things that were made.

Through Christ

we become new people,

called beyond the consequences

of our brokenness

and lifted to the fullness of life.

By the power of the Holy Spirit

he was born of the woman Mary,

pure in soul

and single-hearted--

a sign to the ages

of the exalted place

of womankind

in the divine plan

of human salvation.

He grew as we grow

through all the stages of life.

He lived as we live

prey to the pressures of evil

and intent on the good.

He broke no bonds with the world

to which we was bound,

He sinned not.

He never strayed from the mind of God.

He showed us the Way,

lived it for us,

suffered from it,

and died because of it

so that we might live

with new heart,

new mind,

and new strength

despite all the death

to which we are daily subjected.

For our sake

and for the sake of eternal Truth

he was hounded

harassed

and executed

by those

who were their own gods

and who valued the sacred

in no other.

He suffered so that we might realize

that the spirit in us

can never be killed

whatever price we have to pay

for staying true to the mind of God.

He died

but did not die

because he lives in us

still.

“On the third day” in the tomb

he rose again

in those he left behind

and in each of us as well

to live in hearts

that will not succumb

to the enemies of life.

He changed all of life

for all of us thereafter.

He ascended into the life of God

and waits there

for our own ascension

to the life beyond life.

He waits there,

judging what has gone before

and what is yet to come

against unending values

and, in behalf of eternal virtue,

for the time when all of life

will be gathered into God,

full of life and light,

steeped in truth.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the breath of God

on earth,

who keeps the Christ vision present

to souls yet in darkness,

gives life

even to hearts now blind.

Infuses energy

into spirits yet weary, isolated,

searching and confused.

The spirit has spoken

to the human heart

through the prophets

and gives me meaning

to the Word

throughout time.

I believe in one

holy and universal church.

Bound together by the holiness of creation

and the holiness of hearts forever true.

I acknowledge the need

to be freed from the compulsions

of my disordered life

and my need for forgiveness

in face of frailty.

I look for life eternal

in ways I cannot dream

and trust

that creation goes on creating

in this world

and in us

forever.

Amen.

Amen to creation, to the God who is life, to courage, to hope, to the spirit of truth, to nature, to happiness, to wholeness, to the place of women in the plan of God, to the Christ who calls us beyond the boundaries of ourselves, to forgiveness, to everything that makes living the first step in the stretching of the heart to the dimensions of God. Amen. Amen. Amen. In all of this we can surely believe. As God has.

In Search of Belief, Joan Chittister

“They didn’t have much to give except the name of Jesus.”

Pentecost

There’s so much to be celebrated about this day... the feast of the Holy Trinity, the birthday of the Church, the adoption of the Sinai covenant for the Jewish people under the Prophet Moses. This day, when the Holy Spirit descended from Heaven, it was made known that there was to be an all-encompassing and constant presence of God among His people. At a time when Jesus’ disciples and Apostles were still feeling the pain of Jesus' crucifixion, God had become present yet again in their midst. It was from this point that these men began their ministry, preaching the Gospel to everyone that would listen.

This same Spirit that ignited the Apostles ignites us as well. It is with the same blessing that we, today, are given gifts that will further God’s kingdom on Earth. It is easy to lose sight of that. We are so heavily laden with the guilt of our sins that we find it easy to create a chasm between us and Jesus and the first disciples. We think that God is working less in us than He did in the founders of our Church.

But Pentecost, 2000 years ago and today, is the day when the Holy Spirit descends upon God’s people and, with “tongues as of fire,” we are gifted with the burning passion to spread the Gospel according to the gifts we’ve been given. So today, the Christian Church is born; the founders of our faith tradition began evangelizing the love and grace of God. And we, as followers of Christ, are reminded to carry the torch of our founders and use the fire of the Holy Spirit to spread the Gospel today.

“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’” Rom. 8:15

This is the Gospel reading for today. I know that we hear it all the time and its ideas have been so secularized that it loses so much of its gusto, but maybe today, maybe in the place where you are sitting, reading this, you need to hear it once again. So take a moment. Read it slowly. Absorb the beauty, simplicity, and fullness of this commandment.

Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.

This I command you: love one another.” Jn 15:9-17

Date with destiny?

If you haven’t heard of the Times Square bomb scare by now, you should probably crawl out from under whatever rock you’ve found. That aside, the details are strewn about the news, journalists and Homeland Security are saying this is the most serious bombing attempt since the Christmas Day attempt on the airplane heading to Detroit. And the residents, tourists, and I are breathing a big sigh of relief that, by some twist of fate, this bomb did not detonate.

I was actually leaving Times Square Saturday evening at about 7pm when the overwhelmingly busy square block of New York City was flooded with emergency response vehicles while the many tourists that were enjoying the sights were evacuating. To be honest, I did not think much of the scene and didn’t even know anything serious was taking place until the next morning when a friend informed me that we cheated death. (Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but not quite!)

When retrospectively faced with my mortality, I thought about what it means to be, unknowingly, at the mercy of somebody else, when your life is in their hands and you don’t even realize it. Daily we put our faith in the goodness of our brothers and sisters that we will make it through the day. We trust that others seek to do good and avoid harm, or that they’ll at least resist their urge to harm.

I am humbled (time and again) by what little control I actually have over my own life and what amount of power others may have over mine. I am grateful that my Pakistani brother did not properly construct the bomb, that the souvenir salesman immediately notified the authorities when he saw smoke coming from the car, and that the emergency response personnel acted in a swift manner to eliminate any potential harm. And again, we put our lives in the hands of others whom we may never meet.

Our lives are all intimately connected, whether we realize it or not. We have the power to make big changes in the lives of people with whom we will never be face-to-face. Our actions affect those around us and people we don’t even know. Think about it.