Passing beyond
March 26, 2006
In any limit situation the final step is when you see things in a different way. You believe at such a time that the form in which you see a thing at that moment is the only valid one, the only one possible, maybe because (you say to yourself) you were educated in that manner or because all your experiences have been inducing in you a conviction that there is no other way of thinking about it— although, to be honest, you would have to admit that this new perspective represents a total break with the past.
For example…the people of the Bible tell in the Book of Chronicles how their exile in Babylon changed everything for them, even their own awareness of guilt. This Sunday’s psalm expresses the same idea in a poem full of vivid memories recast now in the light of new understanding. The exiles had to assume a different historical perspective on Yahweh’s intervention when Cyrus, a foreign military leader and their captor, made possible the return of the Hebrew exiles to their own country. The road to their liberation and rebuilding as a people lay along a route they least expected— a road smoothed by their enemy!
Christian existence develops from a similar necessity to change perspective. The synoptic gospels call it “metanoia” or conversion. Entire people have to re-root themselves in order to survive. Families have to reground their habits and presuppositions in order to grow. Each person too must break away from the perspective of his or her own personal history. There is no other way to enjoy the liberty and responsibility of an adult human being.
The communities where the Gospel of John was born deepened this understanding. When we read about the nocturnal encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus, it is of this slow, difficult process of metanoia that we are speaking, a process with profound consequences. Faith isn’t possible unless we go through this un-learning. It’s like passing from shadows into light. It’s about the event of “grace.” The mercy and love of God wrap around our lives as we open ourselves and welcome this life-giving presence in its own unexpected, unpredictable being… and we experience “the incomparable richness of his grace.” How can we know that this grace is ours every day? Will we be able to find it even where events seem to work against us? Do we believe that grace is present in us and that it is saving us?
The early Christians experienced this grace. For many of them, born in the bosom of the Jewish people, the force of their faith consisted at first in their degree of compliance with rules and laws, for this was their only path not only to God but also to their authentic identity. But then Jesus announces, then makes freely possible new relations among people and a new relation with God, relations based not on the Law but in love and liberty. Yes, he ended up condemned and nailed to a cross as a malefactor because his gospel had radical practical consequences. But then the scandal of the cross, after the experience of the resurrection, led his disciples to cast away their previous perspective. It lit in them all a new light. “Whoever believes in Jesus given to us by the Father will not perish but will have eternal life.”
The risen Christ does not bring us a message of accusation and condemnation. He is himself a free offer of life in its fullness. Accepting that offer or rejecting it is what decides everything. Nor is this a matter of our having to perform grand actions. Even a tiny light is enough to open the way in the densest shadow. Our part is to be attentive to every sign of the times and to recognize there the “free” action of the merciful God who respectfully invites us to transform our perspective and to open ourselves to new attitudes.
domingo, 23 de diciembre de 2007
Knowing that We’re Loved
May 21, 2006
Knowing that we’re loved, and loved unconditionally— knowing this about ourselves is essential for affirming our own humanity.
Yet our experience shows us how broken this freely-given love becomes by the time it reaches us, this love with which and for which we came into being. So much is this the case that tenacious voices take root in our souls, in our consciences, and in our bodies, insisting that we are not worthy of being loved. Holding out against these voices is hard enough. But when we hear them amplified at higher and higher volume by societal behavior and by a communications media laden with prejudices, racism, and xenophobia, then holding out against them becomes even harder…it becomes even harder to believe that we’re loved and even more to live in this belief.
The communities centered around the disciple John saw something unique in Jesus. They saw that the man from Nazareth lived as if he truly were loved. He lived and celebrated agapé— the Greek word for self-giving fellowship— every day. He was the bearer of that love which, to the extent that it is freely affirmed in the “other,” is fulfilled in oneself at the same time. Perhaps that’s why Jesus says that this love is dynamically interpersonal. “As the Father loves me, so I love you… You must then love each other.”
But we, his disciples, discover that our being chosen and loved came before our capacity to love and enabled it … “It is not that we have loved God… it is that he has loved us first.” Paraphrasing the Taoist master: “When this love is my sole possession, I am invincible.”
The world’s movement of migrants, seen from through the eyes of the population that receives them, tends to provoke fear. Arriving migrants are seen not only as strangers but as enemies even before arriving. We can speak of an ethical predisposition against the “other.” This works against the fact that opening ourselves to otherness could create new paths that might enrich both parties in the migratory phenomenon. Only those who have experienced unconditional love can break the barriers that block that opening.
Migrant community members instantly recognize within the Anglo population those people who are open, welcoming, and unprejudiced. This is because these Anglo persons live the experience of unconditional love right in the midst of the paranoia created by the xenophobic politics of the present administration. They value their migrant neighbors and take the initiative to go to meet them, open to learning about their lives. They freely affirm those who are strangers to them, in this way starting an enriching cycle of growth in human encounter and mutual collaboration. As the fruit of a similar experience the young Christian community arrived at a beautiful realization: “God is not partial.” (Acts of the Apostles)
We have to commit to persevering in this freely-given love which constitutes and sustains us all…
But how is this done? We have to do as the migrants themselves do. We first have to feel deeply, as they do, the evil of every experience of discrimination without rejecting ourselves (without judging ourselves as the prejudiced do). By persevering in openness we see clearly how we are rejected simply because we are migrants. But at the same time we evoke through this perseverance the creative power of love that God has placed in the deepest part of ourselves and that affirms us as worthy to be loved. And we remember that God, who loved us first, was a stranger himself— a stranger who took the initiative and crossed a mighty frontier in order to share the lives of a varied humanity. Only authentic love can break down barriers as great as these.
And so we know God says to each one of us, migrant and Anglo alike: “You, my child, are a person sent by the Father to cross frontiers, carrying with you a message of transformation. And so repeat this ‘mantra’ without ceasing: ‘I am a person unconditionally loved, I have been sent on a mission….’”
May 21, 2006
Knowing that we’re loved, and loved unconditionally— knowing this about ourselves is essential for affirming our own humanity.
Yet our experience shows us how broken this freely-given love becomes by the time it reaches us, this love with which and for which we came into being. So much is this the case that tenacious voices take root in our souls, in our consciences, and in our bodies, insisting that we are not worthy of being loved. Holding out against these voices is hard enough. But when we hear them amplified at higher and higher volume by societal behavior and by a communications media laden with prejudices, racism, and xenophobia, then holding out against them becomes even harder…it becomes even harder to believe that we’re loved and even more to live in this belief.
The communities centered around the disciple John saw something unique in Jesus. They saw that the man from Nazareth lived as if he truly were loved. He lived and celebrated agapé— the Greek word for self-giving fellowship— every day. He was the bearer of that love which, to the extent that it is freely affirmed in the “other,” is fulfilled in oneself at the same time. Perhaps that’s why Jesus says that this love is dynamically interpersonal. “As the Father loves me, so I love you… You must then love each other.”
But we, his disciples, discover that our being chosen and loved came before our capacity to love and enabled it … “It is not that we have loved God… it is that he has loved us first.” Paraphrasing the Taoist master: “When this love is my sole possession, I am invincible.”
The world’s movement of migrants, seen from through the eyes of the population that receives them, tends to provoke fear. Arriving migrants are seen not only as strangers but as enemies even before arriving. We can speak of an ethical predisposition against the “other.” This works against the fact that opening ourselves to otherness could create new paths that might enrich both parties in the migratory phenomenon. Only those who have experienced unconditional love can break the barriers that block that opening.
Migrant community members instantly recognize within the Anglo population those people who are open, welcoming, and unprejudiced. This is because these Anglo persons live the experience of unconditional love right in the midst of the paranoia created by the xenophobic politics of the present administration. They value their migrant neighbors and take the initiative to go to meet them, open to learning about their lives. They freely affirm those who are strangers to them, in this way starting an enriching cycle of growth in human encounter and mutual collaboration. As the fruit of a similar experience the young Christian community arrived at a beautiful realization: “God is not partial.” (Acts of the Apostles)
We have to commit to persevering in this freely-given love which constitutes and sustains us all…
But how is this done? We have to do as the migrants themselves do. We first have to feel deeply, as they do, the evil of every experience of discrimination without rejecting ourselves (without judging ourselves as the prejudiced do). By persevering in openness we see clearly how we are rejected simply because we are migrants. But at the same time we evoke through this perseverance the creative power of love that God has placed in the deepest part of ourselves and that affirms us as worthy to be loved. And we remember that God, who loved us first, was a stranger himself— a stranger who took the initiative and crossed a mighty frontier in order to share the lives of a varied humanity. Only authentic love can break down barriers as great as these.
And so we know God says to each one of us, migrant and Anglo alike: “You, my child, are a person sent by the Father to cross frontiers, carrying with you a message of transformation. And so repeat this ‘mantra’ without ceasing: ‘I am a person unconditionally loved, I have been sent on a mission….’”
Eating and Memory
April 30, 2006
Sharing meals became the signature of those disciples.
And for the people who come to the US to work in the fields, for them too sharing meals is almost a ritual. At least for the ones I know who grew up working in Mexican fields, for them meals were shared among members of their family and involved much more than taking in food.
It was Jesus who gave meaning to meals shared by a group. His dreams of the Kingdom of God were clarified in and through meals taken among brothers and equals. This is so much the case that for us also the act of sharing a little bread and wine has become the central event of the faith we celebrate every Sunday.
That’s why the selection from Luke’s Gospel today shows the risen Christ asking for something to eat. And once they sit down together with him, that handful of disciples glimpses the identity of the defeated-resurrected one and finally understands what was written about him in the Old Testament. The shared meal gives new dimension to their vocation and mission.
It’s odd, the role North American culture gives to eating. Seldom is it an end in itself. People eat together when they’re doing business together— “working lunches,” they say. Eating is a pragmatic affair. The meal itself is of little interest, “fast food,” something you gobble up on your way to something else.
In spite of that it’s still true that I have enjoyed the true conviviality of mealtime even in western New York. It happens when a family from the Caribbean invites me to dinner or when I’m in the home of a migrant family or in a migrant camp. At such times eating has no other object that to gather and to enjoy that gathering. But let it be clear that this happens not only in homes and at leisure. Particularly in the harvest season, when the rhythm of work is exhausting— it is there that I have lived most deeply the experience of “recognition,” of peace and joy, that the disciples lived when they recognized the risen one in their midst. Sitting under a tree together, sharing some tacos heated up on the spot. There are no other motives, no business to conduct, no other place to get to (as when you find yourself keeping an eye on your watch during a “lunch meeting”). Just the gathering itself.
A meal like that reconnects you to what is most human in yourself and in the others sharing the meal with you. “It is really I…not a ghost.” “You are a person…not a shadow.”
Our Eucharists, now so ritualized, aspire to connect us with that sense of conviviality which the people of our migrant communities have already tasted. Where Jesus, the rejected one, whose way of life has become a model for us— where Jesus is the fellow diner who gathers and inspires not only us but everyone else.
For me the Eucharists that come closest to this experience are those we’ve experienced in the some of the migrant camps… when the participants lay down their sacks as they return from picking apples. The Celebration unites us as we tell the stories of our comings and goings, our fallings-down and risings. We allow the Lord to speak to us as we read his word. And almost always it happens that very early, before leaving for work that day, the team has prepared something to eat for sharing after the Eucharist.
“At that moment the Spirit of the crucified and resurrected one opens our understanding so that we might comprehend the Word that has become reality in our lives, and then he sends us to be his witnesses.”
April 30, 2006
Sharing meals became the signature of those disciples.
And for the people who come to the US to work in the fields, for them too sharing meals is almost a ritual. At least for the ones I know who grew up working in Mexican fields, for them meals were shared among members of their family and involved much more than taking in food.
It was Jesus who gave meaning to meals shared by a group. His dreams of the Kingdom of God were clarified in and through meals taken among brothers and equals. This is so much the case that for us also the act of sharing a little bread and wine has become the central event of the faith we celebrate every Sunday.
That’s why the selection from Luke’s Gospel today shows the risen Christ asking for something to eat. And once they sit down together with him, that handful of disciples glimpses the identity of the defeated-resurrected one and finally understands what was written about him in the Old Testament. The shared meal gives new dimension to their vocation and mission.
It’s odd, the role North American culture gives to eating. Seldom is it an end in itself. People eat together when they’re doing business together— “working lunches,” they say. Eating is a pragmatic affair. The meal itself is of little interest, “fast food,” something you gobble up on your way to something else.
In spite of that it’s still true that I have enjoyed the true conviviality of mealtime even in western New York. It happens when a family from the Caribbean invites me to dinner or when I’m in the home of a migrant family or in a migrant camp. At such times eating has no other object that to gather and to enjoy that gathering. But let it be clear that this happens not only in homes and at leisure. Particularly in the harvest season, when the rhythm of work is exhausting— it is there that I have lived most deeply the experience of “recognition,” of peace and joy, that the disciples lived when they recognized the risen one in their midst. Sitting under a tree together, sharing some tacos heated up on the spot. There are no other motives, no business to conduct, no other place to get to (as when you find yourself keeping an eye on your watch during a “lunch meeting”). Just the gathering itself.
A meal like that reconnects you to what is most human in yourself and in the others sharing the meal with you. “It is really I…not a ghost.” “You are a person…not a shadow.”
Our Eucharists, now so ritualized, aspire to connect us with that sense of conviviality which the people of our migrant communities have already tasted. Where Jesus, the rejected one, whose way of life has become a model for us— where Jesus is the fellow diner who gathers and inspires not only us but everyone else.
For me the Eucharists that come closest to this experience are those we’ve experienced in the some of the migrant camps… when the participants lay down their sacks as they return from picking apples. The Celebration unites us as we tell the stories of our comings and goings, our fallings-down and risings. We allow the Lord to speak to us as we read his word. And almost always it happens that very early, before leaving for work that day, the team has prepared something to eat for sharing after the Eucharist.
“At that moment the Spirit of the crucified and resurrected one opens our understanding so that we might comprehend the Word that has become reality in our lives, and then he sends us to be his witnesses.”
jueves, 20 de diciembre de 2007
Dignity
March 12, 2006
Dyed-in-the-wool sociologists usually say that migrants “lose” the dignity given them by their places of origin. Back at home they are known as Mr. Smith and Mrs. Jones… but once they enter the migrant stream, their dignity disappears. First the “coyotes” treat them with no respect, then in the eyes of contractors and farmers they are just cheap hand labor. Service agencies consider them ignorant, because they don’t speak English and because they have skin of a different color. The law itself tries to turn them into felons for the crime of being undocumented…
But what is happening here isn’t so much the loss of identity as its distortion. Certain social contexts in which people live and act cloud over their true faces. In Christian tradition we understand that Jesus lived under this bitter contradiction. The populace of his country was awaiting a politically powerful Messiah. Even Jesus’ own community of disciples saw and understood him according to that image— for it seems that only by being politically powerful could you receive your “legal documents” as a Messiah! The Gospel of Mark is very clear about this. Jesus constantly insists there that no publicity be given to himself or to his actions. He wants no part of the identity that they attribute to him.
In this context, the Transfiguration obliges us to be guided by the suspicion that the majority of us, in questions of faith, might be mistaken in the way we see these matters. And if this is so, then the community has to understand that Christ’s true face is not reflected in the Messiah of majesty and political might, but in the Messiah who confronts the cross. “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.” The brilliantly white clothing that speaks already of faith in the resurrection speaks also of how believers become so blinded by that light that they wish the path of commitment could be free of contradictions, and even that God could intervene in a more visibly effective way in our lives and societies.
As Bishop Oscar Romero liked to paraphrase it: “The glory of God is that the poor might live.” Every migrant man and woman embraces in him or herself a dignity that doesn’t shine but that is distorted constantly. Migrant believers without documents know what it means to live under suspicion…but they discover that contradiction brings you to value your own dignity more intensely and not to give it up for lost. And when there is the possibility of finding a place, a community that allows you to welcome with honesty what is happening in your person… an experience that disposes you to discover the light of the living God who battles to become embodied in you… then you regain your spirit and you live a transfiguration.
I have met wayfarers (migrant men and women) with the strength to live and transform this contradictory world and their own deficiencies, amazed by their own dignity and ready to honor their responsibilities, to support their families, and to proclaim their testimony of hope.
March 12, 2006
Dyed-in-the-wool sociologists usually say that migrants “lose” the dignity given them by their places of origin. Back at home they are known as Mr. Smith and Mrs. Jones… but once they enter the migrant stream, their dignity disappears. First the “coyotes” treat them with no respect, then in the eyes of contractors and farmers they are just cheap hand labor. Service agencies consider them ignorant, because they don’t speak English and because they have skin of a different color. The law itself tries to turn them into felons for the crime of being undocumented…
But what is happening here isn’t so much the loss of identity as its distortion. Certain social contexts in which people live and act cloud over their true faces. In Christian tradition we understand that Jesus lived under this bitter contradiction. The populace of his country was awaiting a politically powerful Messiah. Even Jesus’ own community of disciples saw and understood him according to that image— for it seems that only by being politically powerful could you receive your “legal documents” as a Messiah! The Gospel of Mark is very clear about this. Jesus constantly insists there that no publicity be given to himself or to his actions. He wants no part of the identity that they attribute to him.
In this context, the Transfiguration obliges us to be guided by the suspicion that the majority of us, in questions of faith, might be mistaken in the way we see these matters. And if this is so, then the community has to understand that Christ’s true face is not reflected in the Messiah of majesty and political might, but in the Messiah who confronts the cross. “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.” The brilliantly white clothing that speaks already of faith in the resurrection speaks also of how believers become so blinded by that light that they wish the path of commitment could be free of contradictions, and even that God could intervene in a more visibly effective way in our lives and societies.
As Bishop Oscar Romero liked to paraphrase it: “The glory of God is that the poor might live.” Every migrant man and woman embraces in him or herself a dignity that doesn’t shine but that is distorted constantly. Migrant believers without documents know what it means to live under suspicion…but they discover that contradiction brings you to value your own dignity more intensely and not to give it up for lost. And when there is the possibility of finding a place, a community that allows you to welcome with honesty what is happening in your person… an experience that disposes you to discover the light of the living God who battles to become embodied in you… then you regain your spirit and you live a transfiguration.
I have met wayfarers (migrant men and women) with the strength to live and transform this contradictory world and their own deficiencies, amazed by their own dignity and ready to honor their responsibilities, to support their families, and to proclaim their testimony of hope.
Camouflage?
May 5, 2006
Contrary to the way mystics lived in the past, by “fleeing the world,” this impulse of flight does not lead today’s believers to true sanctification. Nowadays it’s our insertion into all the world’s dimensions that permits us to live our Christian faith most authentically.
Yet we see a motive of insertion even within the early church itself. In its confrontation with the most systematic expressions of Greek culture, the best way the early church found to develop and live its faith was to welcome critically the thought structures and social organization which the pagan world offered it. The Fathers, as they are called— the early Greek apologists for the Christian religion— were, in their own manner of thinking, a laboratory where a faith vision was created using the philosophical materials of a culture in whose eyes this new faith was practically irrelevant.
Believers today live even more deeply within the “world” and from that greater depth of immersion must also develop their faith. The Second Vatican Council suspected that this trend was happening, but was neither able nor willing to draw the necessary conclusions. And so it is that not all church structures help or form the faithful for this labor.
Our history as a people of faith has followed a path of syncretization— not a path of ghetto-dwelling, of living in isolated bubbles of ideological purity. Today’s human cultures have been generated by surprising syncretizations. Unique, self-contained paradigms cannot be sustained in the search for truth and human fulfillment.
Jesus asks the Father that his disciples be sanctified in the truth. That word “truth,” highly valued by the community of John, seeks to connect the evangelical mission of Jesus with the practice of discipleship. That is why the word refers, not to a theoretical effort to reach the truth, but to a way of living. The best, most vital synthesis of this approach to the truth arose from syncretic experiences. The New Testament scriptures are the clearest expression of this synthesis.
The French rationalist philosopher Gaston Bachelard thought that the most expeditious way for people to open themselves to the truth was to subject themselves to the evidence of their own erroneous ideas. Not in order to cling to those false ideas, but to enable the truth to emerge in the only way it can, through dialogue and synthesis. For since the effort to construct reality epistemologically inevitably brings along with it the history of one’s own prejudices, then the truth about reality can be built up only through engaging with those prejudices and working both with and beyond them. Similarly, the believers’ approach to the truth passes through their insertion in all dimensions of the “world,” even though believers might not be in agreement with its structures. Believers have to accept those structures, while taking into account the prejudices against the world inherited from their experience of the Church.
This is why the real is called the “path to humanization”…in order to consecrate the disciple in the truth. This is not a strategy for camouflaging believers in the world’s costume. It is an unavoidable choice for opening oneself to the world with all its contradictions without becoming of the world.
In this sense those of us formed for evangelical service need to relearn the Gospel’s message by observing its practice in the lives of many simple believers. They are the ones who are living in their own flesh the mission cast only in theoretical form at Vatican II— the mission of uniting faith and life, of overcoming the divorce of a faith which distances itself from everyday reality— in order to embrace the “world” as the terrain where the Kingdom is being prepared. This mission is being carried out right now by men and women of faith who are making mature ethical decisions in disagreement with the Church’s moral teaching (we are thinking of the vitality of their matrimonial sexuality)… by men and women of faith who have aligned themselves, in their political commitments and ideological struggles, in solidarity with communities that have been impoverished and excluded.
The “world”— that anti-Kingdom force that hates the disciple— is also where Christ’s fidelity to the Father is to be proclaimed.
May 5, 2006
Contrary to the way mystics lived in the past, by “fleeing the world,” this impulse of flight does not lead today’s believers to true sanctification. Nowadays it’s our insertion into all the world’s dimensions that permits us to live our Christian faith most authentically.
Yet we see a motive of insertion even within the early church itself. In its confrontation with the most systematic expressions of Greek culture, the best way the early church found to develop and live its faith was to welcome critically the thought structures and social organization which the pagan world offered it. The Fathers, as they are called— the early Greek apologists for the Christian religion— were, in their own manner of thinking, a laboratory where a faith vision was created using the philosophical materials of a culture in whose eyes this new faith was practically irrelevant.
Believers today live even more deeply within the “world” and from that greater depth of immersion must also develop their faith. The Second Vatican Council suspected that this trend was happening, but was neither able nor willing to draw the necessary conclusions. And so it is that not all church structures help or form the faithful for this labor.
Our history as a people of faith has followed a path of syncretization— not a path of ghetto-dwelling, of living in isolated bubbles of ideological purity. Today’s human cultures have been generated by surprising syncretizations. Unique, self-contained paradigms cannot be sustained in the search for truth and human fulfillment.
Jesus asks the Father that his disciples be sanctified in the truth. That word “truth,” highly valued by the community of John, seeks to connect the evangelical mission of Jesus with the practice of discipleship. That is why the word refers, not to a theoretical effort to reach the truth, but to a way of living. The best, most vital synthesis of this approach to the truth arose from syncretic experiences. The New Testament scriptures are the clearest expression of this synthesis.
The French rationalist philosopher Gaston Bachelard thought that the most expeditious way for people to open themselves to the truth was to subject themselves to the evidence of their own erroneous ideas. Not in order to cling to those false ideas, but to enable the truth to emerge in the only way it can, through dialogue and synthesis. For since the effort to construct reality epistemologically inevitably brings along with it the history of one’s own prejudices, then the truth about reality can be built up only through engaging with those prejudices and working both with and beyond them. Similarly, the believers’ approach to the truth passes through their insertion in all dimensions of the “world,” even though believers might not be in agreement with its structures. Believers have to accept those structures, while taking into account the prejudices against the world inherited from their experience of the Church.
This is why the real is called the “path to humanization”…in order to consecrate the disciple in the truth. This is not a strategy for camouflaging believers in the world’s costume. It is an unavoidable choice for opening oneself to the world with all its contradictions without becoming of the world.
In this sense those of us formed for evangelical service need to relearn the Gospel’s message by observing its practice in the lives of many simple believers. They are the ones who are living in their own flesh the mission cast only in theoretical form at Vatican II— the mission of uniting faith and life, of overcoming the divorce of a faith which distances itself from everyday reality— in order to embrace the “world” as the terrain where the Kingdom is being prepared. This mission is being carried out right now by men and women of faith who are making mature ethical decisions in disagreement with the Church’s moral teaching (we are thinking of the vitality of their matrimonial sexuality)… by men and women of faith who have aligned themselves, in their political commitments and ideological struggles, in solidarity with communities that have been impoverished and excluded.
The “world”— that anti-Kingdom force that hates the disciple— is also where Christ’s fidelity to the Father is to be proclaimed.
martes, 18 de diciembre de 2007
Bodies Handed-Over
June 18, 2006
Farm products, in the United States, are cheap because they are harvested and processed by “illegal” hands. Fruits and vegetables can’t be harvested by machinery; they need skilled human hands to gather them. The care of animals, cattle and chickens for meat, cows for milk, horses for riding— these too demand “illegal” hand labor. And one has to say, in fidelity to truth, that no North American worker is interested in laboring in these ways.
But this is why the population of North America has access to such foods at low cost. Agribusiness gets juicy federal subsidies to make up part of the difference between the profits they demand and the actual costs of the food. (Small county farms do not reap those benefits, however.) Migrants themselves make up the rest of the difference. They are a cheap labor force, without legal protection, without organizing experience, and without support structure— it is this “subsidy” which is the key to keeping product costs down.
Shoppers who go to supermarkets to buy farm products never think about the bodily energy and physical wear-and-tear on the people who harvest the goods they buy. Migrants’ stories are neither told nor heard inside the supermarkets. Yet those stories refocus for us the theological elements developed by the Feast of Corpus Christi to capture the salvific dimension of that Body handed over and of that Blood poured out….
A person laboring on farms and fields in this country has a very short work life. If we assume that the farm worker population is very young to begin with, they cannot work productively beyond ten years. You meet people with premature health problems provoked by the rhythm and type of the work they do. Those twenty-year-old workers who give themselves to agricultural work are convinced that by working hard they can save up a good sum of money. That’s why you meet young migrants working ten to fifteen hours per day, without proper time for rest and recuperation. They are forced to accept exposure to the various chemical compounds used in the fields— not to mention the stress that overwhelms them because of their legal status and because of culture shock. There isn’t time or energy for personal development in other areas. Nor for study, nor for participation in the community. Time perhaps just for distractions, often not healthy ones.
Put simply, we’re talking about hand laborers now unemployable in poor countries, we’re talking about prisoners of globalization. These men and women understand fieldwork. They have an ingrained feel for the earth and for the care of animals, and they do this labor with a will. But they haven’t the least idea of how their labor— within a cycle of injustice and exploitation— is providing life to millions of people. Their daily physical effort isn’t expended just so their own families might live and survive. Their bodies, delivered over daily to hard labor, make possible the life of a “First World” country— a country that has practically forgotten how field produce is harvested and yet could not survive without the migrants’ labor.
One migrant, Antonio, puts it this way: “We work from sun up to sun down, we do the heaviest and riskiest jobs. We have to work seven days a week…just to survive. We are the most vulnerable…living constantly with the fear of being arrested by the police or by ‘migra.’”
In a parallel situation, Jesus took a bit of bread and some wine and transformed them into a symbol of his self-giving.
When I think about the twelve million “illegal” people in the US doing such exhausting physical labor, I recall the prayer usually said in silence that Bishop Oscar Romero used to say aloud after the Eucharistic consecration of the bread and wine: “May this body handed over and this wine poured out inspire us to hand over our own lives in order that the Kingdom of brothers be realized.”
June 18, 2006
Farm products, in the United States, are cheap because they are harvested and processed by “illegal” hands. Fruits and vegetables can’t be harvested by machinery; they need skilled human hands to gather them. The care of animals, cattle and chickens for meat, cows for milk, horses for riding— these too demand “illegal” hand labor. And one has to say, in fidelity to truth, that no North American worker is interested in laboring in these ways.
But this is why the population of North America has access to such foods at low cost. Agribusiness gets juicy federal subsidies to make up part of the difference between the profits they demand and the actual costs of the food. (Small county farms do not reap those benefits, however.) Migrants themselves make up the rest of the difference. They are a cheap labor force, without legal protection, without organizing experience, and without support structure— it is this “subsidy” which is the key to keeping product costs down.
Shoppers who go to supermarkets to buy farm products never think about the bodily energy and physical wear-and-tear on the people who harvest the goods they buy. Migrants’ stories are neither told nor heard inside the supermarkets. Yet those stories refocus for us the theological elements developed by the Feast of Corpus Christi to capture the salvific dimension of that Body handed over and of that Blood poured out….
A person laboring on farms and fields in this country has a very short work life. If we assume that the farm worker population is very young to begin with, they cannot work productively beyond ten years. You meet people with premature health problems provoked by the rhythm and type of the work they do. Those twenty-year-old workers who give themselves to agricultural work are convinced that by working hard they can save up a good sum of money. That’s why you meet young migrants working ten to fifteen hours per day, without proper time for rest and recuperation. They are forced to accept exposure to the various chemical compounds used in the fields— not to mention the stress that overwhelms them because of their legal status and because of culture shock. There isn’t time or energy for personal development in other areas. Nor for study, nor for participation in the community. Time perhaps just for distractions, often not healthy ones.
Put simply, we’re talking about hand laborers now unemployable in poor countries, we’re talking about prisoners of globalization. These men and women understand fieldwork. They have an ingrained feel for the earth and for the care of animals, and they do this labor with a will. But they haven’t the least idea of how their labor— within a cycle of injustice and exploitation— is providing life to millions of people. Their daily physical effort isn’t expended just so their own families might live and survive. Their bodies, delivered over daily to hard labor, make possible the life of a “First World” country— a country that has practically forgotten how field produce is harvested and yet could not survive without the migrants’ labor.
One migrant, Antonio, puts it this way: “We work from sun up to sun down, we do the heaviest and riskiest jobs. We have to work seven days a week…just to survive. We are the most vulnerable…living constantly with the fear of being arrested by the police or by ‘migra.’”
In a parallel situation, Jesus took a bit of bread and some wine and transformed them into a symbol of his self-giving.
When I think about the twelve million “illegal” people in the US doing such exhausting physical labor, I recall the prayer usually said in silence that Bishop Oscar Romero used to say aloud after the Eucharistic consecration of the bread and wine: “May this body handed over and this wine poured out inspire us to hand over our own lives in order that the Kingdom of brothers be realized.”
sábado, 1 de diciembre de 2007
El proyecto de pareja solo evoca la plenitud
10/8/06
Un proyecto que sobrepasa la pareja.
Todo ser humano, varón y/o hembra esta llamado a intentar la comunión, sin suprimir la dualidad dinámica de su identidad y de su diferencia.
La preocupación moralizante de la tradición eclesial ha interpretado toda la riqueza del relato de los orígenes solo en el compromiso matrimonial. Sin embargo, ningún ser humano, sean cuales sean sus opciones de vida, puede evadir esta aspiración hacia la unidad de la dualidad hembra-varón.
Una lectura de esta estructura humana, es la marcada por el patriarcado: Pretender suprimir el desafío, construyendo marcos legales excluyentes, atribuidos a la divinidad o trivializar la dualidad “formalizando” una mera relación convencional y arbitraria.
Parece que lo que inspira el relato de los orígenes es la conciencia asombrada de que ni lo masculino ni lo femenino, poseen una dimensión absoluta. Se sospecha su dualidad convergente de una fuente divina común y, por eso, se cree que esa dualidad tiende a encontrar su plenitud en una comunión.
Jesús, que es un sagaz intérprete del AT, sabe que el relato de la pareja tiene mucho más que ver con esta original forma de ser del ser humano, diseñada por el creador. Por eso ante la cuestión del divorcio legal, el amplia la relación de pareja hacia el proyecto original de plenitud del ser humano. El varón se realiza en relación a la mujer y la mujer se realiza en relación al varón….esto no necesariamente implica que el matrimonio sea la única experiencia en que se vive esta plenitud. La incluye, por supuesto, como una opción concreta de un varón y de una mujer.
En nuestras historias, cada ser humano varon y/o mujer es invitado a recorrer la aventura de ir recolectando sus propias dualidades, en un proceso de asuncion, integración, superacion de multiples dualidades no asumidas y vividas frecuentemente como situaciones contradictorias. Se trata de un camino que, conforme se anda, requiere beber de los orígenes y a la vez, inspirarse en Jesús, el hombre nuevo, para ir dibujando cada persona, en su propia singularidad varón-mujer, la figura plena del ser humano. ¿Concluye algún día este proceso integrador? Es un proceso abierto…por eso la vocación de comunión solo es evocada en el compromiso sacramental de la pareja.
Los limites, así como las experiencias de plenitud, durante la jornada de la vida tendrán múltiples y diversas manifestaciones en los matrimonio, en la maternidad y paternidad sin pareja, en la opción por el celibato, en la experiencia de otras orientaciones sexuales. Pero todas son convocadas hacia la búsqueda de la comunión.
Es la relación creativa y creadora con la otra persona y en particular con aquella persona que en su identidad sexual es distinta a mí, lo que me hace crecer y desarrollarme. Es en la complejidad y la riqueza de esta relación donde las dualidades interiores se dimensionan y se expresan en forma mas humana. Sin esa relación mi propio ser no es pleno.
Lo importante es no cancelar esta relación…seria perder el origen y el rumbo: “Al principio no fue así”, dice Jesús.
Un proyecto que sobrepasa la pareja.
Todo ser humano, varón y/o hembra esta llamado a intentar la comunión, sin suprimir la dualidad dinámica de su identidad y de su diferencia.
La preocupación moralizante de la tradición eclesial ha interpretado toda la riqueza del relato de los orígenes solo en el compromiso matrimonial. Sin embargo, ningún ser humano, sean cuales sean sus opciones de vida, puede evadir esta aspiración hacia la unidad de la dualidad hembra-varón.
Una lectura de esta estructura humana, es la marcada por el patriarcado: Pretender suprimir el desafío, construyendo marcos legales excluyentes, atribuidos a la divinidad o trivializar la dualidad “formalizando” una mera relación convencional y arbitraria.
Parece que lo que inspira el relato de los orígenes es la conciencia asombrada de que ni lo masculino ni lo femenino, poseen una dimensión absoluta. Se sospecha su dualidad convergente de una fuente divina común y, por eso, se cree que esa dualidad tiende a encontrar su plenitud en una comunión.
Jesús, que es un sagaz intérprete del AT, sabe que el relato de la pareja tiene mucho más que ver con esta original forma de ser del ser humano, diseñada por el creador. Por eso ante la cuestión del divorcio legal, el amplia la relación de pareja hacia el proyecto original de plenitud del ser humano. El varón se realiza en relación a la mujer y la mujer se realiza en relación al varón….esto no necesariamente implica que el matrimonio sea la única experiencia en que se vive esta plenitud. La incluye, por supuesto, como una opción concreta de un varón y de una mujer.
En nuestras historias, cada ser humano varon y/o mujer es invitado a recorrer la aventura de ir recolectando sus propias dualidades, en un proceso de asuncion, integración, superacion de multiples dualidades no asumidas y vividas frecuentemente como situaciones contradictorias. Se trata de un camino que, conforme se anda, requiere beber de los orígenes y a la vez, inspirarse en Jesús, el hombre nuevo, para ir dibujando cada persona, en su propia singularidad varón-mujer, la figura plena del ser humano. ¿Concluye algún día este proceso integrador? Es un proceso abierto…por eso la vocación de comunión solo es evocada en el compromiso sacramental de la pareja.
Los limites, así como las experiencias de plenitud, durante la jornada de la vida tendrán múltiples y diversas manifestaciones en los matrimonio, en la maternidad y paternidad sin pareja, en la opción por el celibato, en la experiencia de otras orientaciones sexuales. Pero todas son convocadas hacia la búsqueda de la comunión.
Es la relación creativa y creadora con la otra persona y en particular con aquella persona que en su identidad sexual es distinta a mí, lo que me hace crecer y desarrollarme. Es en la complejidad y la riqueza de esta relación donde las dualidades interiores se dimensionan y se expresan en forma mas humana. Sin esa relación mi propio ser no es pleno.
Lo importante es no cancelar esta relación…seria perder el origen y el rumbo: “Al principio no fue así”, dice Jesús.
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