The Underground Railroad

Slavery - Risk Factors We Work Hard to Ignore

I saw this poster on my newsfeed this morning. Kudos to the student who has 'made it'. It would be great to be debt-free... to work and go to school at the same time... to have the choice to choose to live below his/her means... ahhhh... there's that word: choice.

Not knocking hard work or living below one's means (I, myself, live below the poverty line by current Canadian standards), or in any way poo-pooing a strong work ethic, I want to address the myth this person appears to be perpetuating whether consciously or unconsciously.

Many Canadians (and Americans) live under the notion that we are all equal under the law, with equal access to all resources (in this case, school acceptance, scholarships, and a job), and equal opportunities for all. Unfortunately, this is not the reality we live in. The white Euro-centric work ethic of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" has so permeated our churches, schools, and popular thought that to even think that someone could not live debt-free or not be able choose to live below their means is ridiculous... and lazy.

And there's that word again: choice. You know, for those people who have the supports and resources to have "made it", we sometimes take for granted that we have the choice to choose. Many -- a vast many, at that -- do not have that choice. They cannot choose to live below their means. That choice is made for them. They cannot apply for scholarships because they do not qualify for them or (which is so common, sadly) the options to apply are simply not presented to them because the poor really won't make the most of them... their GPA's just aren't... well... you know... they just are not quite there. If they graduate high school, THAT'S a victory! Soooo... maybe a trades school? Even the expectation of success changes when youth are seen as poor or of colour or of a different sexual orientation. But you see, we've convinced ourselves that 'those people' are just plain lazy. And we wipe our hands of it of all. How far from the truth have we come?

Example?

Living in a neighborhood without a grocery store, living as a single parent, 2 young kids (one in daycare and one in kindergarten), 2 jobs and night school. I mean... it's ALL about education right?... so without the parent trying to 'better' themselves, it all looks like laziness or bad choices. Any word to the contrary is made to sound like 'they' are blaming the government again. But on a typical day when said parent is exhausted, has no car, but picks up both kids faithfully, and has to take 3 buses to get to a market that is actually stocked with healthy, affordable food, back home again in time to make supper, put the kids to bed, pay the sitter, and whisk out the door to school, will he or she 'make it'? Well... what is your definition of 'making it'? The popular cultural thought is being debt-free, not living off the support of government welfare, and looking out for your own. According to this definition, said parent already has NOT made it. He or she might in the future... maybe. The kids? Well as long as they work hard enough... and around comes the cycle.

You know, it's great when a student learns early to manage limited funds. But post-secondary education does not come cheap at all, and the gap is growing monthly... yearly. Debt is almost inevitable. And when Christians come down hard on those who choose to enter into debt for that education, the guilt and stigma creates unnecesary schisms. If people only took the time to understand the risk factors that plague a broken world, a broken system, and broken people. It's not all about personal choice, and it's not all about a bad governing body. It IS about understanding the smaller and larger pictures... and choosing compassion overall.

So!

Some risk factors stemming out of this picture that can place any youth at risk for slavery (or any form of exploitation), and vulnerable to current/future poverty:

- low expectations (you expect certain classes or races - if we're going to use those terms - to do poorly, why should they measure up to you?)

- no access (many schools have guidance counselors and scholarship programs, but not all; friends have testified to counselors telling they wouldn't qualify for scholarships because of various silly reasons and the opportunity goes to someone else; lack of well paying jobs that do not create month-to-month choices between paying off loans or food; neighborhoods with community supports)

- no opportunity (in neighborhoods neglected and marginalized, it's hard to find places that will support a kid in their quest to make it out)... middle to upper class folks find this incredulous because hey! If we made it, then they can too. The schism widens.

- bad theology (the white Euro-centric ethic of making it on your own without anyone to blame is a distorted language of the Gospel... when a kid has 1 parent who works 2-3 jobs and still needs government support, lives in a neighborhood that is largely low income, teaches that skin colour DOES make a difference, sees oppressive elements everyday from drugs to prostitution to abuse, learns from a young age that law enforcement is not an institution to trust, and attends a school where the teachers checked out long ago -- you tell me... just how hard does this kid have to pull on hisor her bootstraps before he or she makes it?). When this is perpetuated in churches, attaching God's name tag to what is 'right' only further dominates so many people who are aching for freedom and relationship. But because one way worked for us, the privileged hard-working few (the definition of hard working is an entirely different discussion altogether), we are adamant that it must and WILL work for others. Anything else is laziness, excuses, and blame-gaming.

That's it for now. There are many more. Just 4 for now.
Low expectations
No access to supports
No opportunities for a future
Bad theology

Mull these over for a bit. Dig deeper. But don't stop here at the tough reality. How do we move forward?

The Island of Misfit Toys Gathers Again: Faith, Justice & Reason at the Fall 2011 MAUS Residency

 Every semester I am required to attend a 7-10 day residency for my Urban Studies program (affectionately known as the MAUS program) through Eastern University in Philadelphia. My concentration focus is Community Development, but like most students, I integrate youth development and the arts as well in order to best develop skills that will serve my community around me. It's hardcore. I won't lie. But a couple years ago I was searching (what seemed like uselessly) for 'the perfect program' that would help me build character and skills to live my part of ending the slave trade. Then along came the MAUS program at Eastern: "Faith.Reason.Justice." -- need I say more?

The Island of Misfit Toys is a playful moniker a group of us christened ourselves as -- the ones who come from far outside of Philadelphia. We stay for that 1 short week, study intensely, ask serious questions, get a grasp on thesis development, but most importantly, we take the chance of revealing the deepest parts of ourselves and our ministries that are broken, that are lost, or that are just plain tired out. For us, this residency is our retreat... our haven... our balm in Gilead. I'd say that sounds somewhat melodramatic, but after living through 3 such residencies thus far, I can assure you melodrama has nothing to do with it (unless you're springing a cookie off of your forehead, down your face, and successfully into your mouth). From the West Coast, mid-States, New York, and even Canada, we all congregate in a motely crew that seems would have been entirely unlikely to have gotten together on our own if we had been living side by side. Perhaps I'm wrong... maybe. But this vast, sprawling geographic distance between us weighs on our hearts and minds, and we know all too well that we have but 1 week together. Time becomes all the more precious. We come as misfits in our hometowns, crazy prophets of our times that people have blown off, as worn out ministers of the faith wondering "where's the love gone?", and pieces and parts of us simply don't seem to match the rest of us. Yet this is what makes us precious to one another and, as we discover through each other's stories, precious to God.

I was able to meet and interview Shane Claiborne this semester -- a dream of mine for some time now. If I am to create intentional community for exploited youth exiting the slave trade (say THAT 10 times fast!), I felt I needed to start asking questions of those who live in IC. I'll be honest: I didn't get the answers I thought I was looking for. But if I had gotten some "1,2,3,4" answers, I think I would have come away far more disappointed in the formula than with the open-ended "hanging" respones I did get. Hmmm... still pondering that one. Stay tuned.

In this picture with Shane are three of the wisest people I've had the honour of meeting thus far in my life -- Dr. Drick Boyd, Dr. Kimberlee Johnson, and Dr. J. Nathan Corbitt (from left to right). I say "wise" because while they teach as academics, they also live their faith... their justice... their reason. They are children of God first, and teachers second. They are not perfect (gasp!), but that makes their credibility as fellow sojourners all the more tangible. Not only do they want to see us succeed, but they take the time to get to know us as people and not only students or as numbers in a classroom. The fact that I haven't been booted out yet speaks to their patience (being ignorantly audacious with Dr.Campolo the 1rst semester, and then throwing snowballs in the 2nd... wow... feeling the need to straighten up and fly right). The program itself is not perfect either, I might point out. It doesn't claim to be, but sometimes I'll admit that I expect it to be. Prick the expectation, and my ego deflates back to where my perspective is a little more realistic.


Some of us are taking Applied Research and Evaluation (*shudder*... took that beast last fall!), and others are working on their thesis projects. Personally, I am taking Race & Ethnic Relations course that is putting me through the wringer. If you would rather learn your rhyme and reason of social justice nice and neatly, this program is not for you. Don't bother. If you want to dig to the core of life as it was and is and could be, live as a radical (from the Latin radix: to get to the heart of things), and be the change... take a chance. It will hurt. The questions asked of you will demand you take an honest and hard look inside of yourself to the point where you are bare, exposed, naked and raw. Raw is key here... to be naked and whole might speak to being able to endure the batterings of the truth. To allow yourself to become raw with the truth, the narratives of others, and of Christ means to be naked and pounded -- entering into a mystifying transformation that I can't explain here. Black and white... red and white... yellow and white... anyone sensing a theme here? It's by far been the most spiritually and emotionally challenging course thus far in the program. Yet I wouldn't trade it for anything. Even in the bruising, there is love... fellow Misfit Toys are going through the same process, and we traverse the journey together from wherever we are.

Some of us have lived through poverty and are passionate about seeing homelessness end... others wish to see afterschool programs better engage local communities knowing it takes a village to raise a child... others want to see churches better engage one another as the Bride of Christ, and not destroyers of one another... and still others, like me, seek to engage the world as abolitionists and refuse to see any person or group sold for price anymore. This is my family -- misfits, freaks, crazies, and wanderers. If you come to the program and sense you don't belong, you, my friend, might just be exactly where you're supposed to be.

When The Saints... Yeah, I Want to be One of Them

There are heroes, and then there are heroes. When Wolverine extends his adamantium claws, goes on the rampage, and saves the day despite his tortured self, I'll admit I've felt like the day's been saved a time or two. 

But those heroes fade away. People who try to be lone gunmen end up losing out in the end. Oh sure, the world paints them as saints or overcomers for a while, but when you walk alone to save the day, you walk home alone at the end of the day.

The heroes I'm talking about are the next door neighbors who take in Jews during WWII at the risk of their lives. Corrie ten Boom is a woman I deeply admire, and have written about before. Her vulnerability about her anger and bitterness as she lived through Ravensbruck, lost her family, and yet still discovered "there's no pit so deep...", and she went on to humbly share her story around the world for the rest of her life. That's love. It was love to choose to go against the ruling authority, it was love to see all people as God's beloved creation, and it was love to choose against her human anger and let God transform her very person.

Lady Day... there are a good deal of white people who believe that in our post-modern age, there is no racism. It's over. It's done. Sadly, it's our very whiteness that lies to our souls. Our ignorant veneer of colour blindness upholds institutions and communities of oppression -- it makes them ordinary -- so ordinary we are revolted to be even accused of them being racist. 

Billie was a voice for her time -- and ours. Her rendition of the poem, "Strange Fruit" (written by a Jewish man, by the way), began to tear down walls that not even she could have anticipated. Yes, her life was met with much tragedy, but her message began to open the eyes and the minds of many who didn't even know that strange fruit was still being harvested in the American South. 

 

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a peace activist who stood for the love and grace of Jesus Christ, even when Adolph Hitler demanded German churches tow the Nazi party line. Bonhoeffer's founding of the Confessing Church raised up a generation of German leaders to remain true to the Prince of Peace, and not the Fuhrer. While his stance of non-violence was placed at odds with his involvement in a failed assasination attempt on the Fuhrer's life, he showed himself as a broken man, saved by God, conflicted with the world. He walked to his execution a free man, already knowing his real destination. 

 

 

 

 

Sara Groves wrote the song, When the Saints. The lyrics rise up in me whenever I hear it -- a Song from the Underground. It was beautifully presented at our church's recent Missions Fest. While I have shared only 3 of the figures who have shaped my life personally (there are many others of all colours and ethnicities), I wish the lyrics and the music to be dedicated to the Nameless Ones -- the ones who are known by God, but hardly by humanity. Yet they dwell within the hardest places of our world. They are they heroes -- unworshiped, but dearly loved; un-idolized, but fully blessed; unknown, and content to be so. 

BTW... the brief images of the Sally Ann parade in the music video brought tears to my eyes. There I saw my parents... my grandparents... my great-grandparents... and my great-great grandparents... so speaking of heroes and saints...

I wanna be one of them.

When The Saints

By Sara Groves

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lord i have a heavy burden of all i've seen and know it's more than i can handle but your word is burning like a fire shut up in my bones and i can’t let it go and when i'm weary and overwrought with so many battles left unfought i think of paul and silas in the prison yard i hear their song of freedom rising to the stars and when the Saints go marching in i want to be one of them lord it's all that i can't carry and cannot leave behind it all can overwhelm me but when i think of all who've gone before and lived a faithful life their courage compels me and when i'm weary and overwrought with so many battles left unfought i think of paul and silas in the prison yard i hear their song of freedom rising to the stars i see the shepherd moses in the pharaohs court i hear his call for freedom for the people of the Lord chorus x2 i see the long quiet walk along the underground railroad i see the slave awakening to the value of her soul i see the young missionary and the angry spear  i see his family returning with no trace of fear i see the long hard shadows of calcutta nights i see the sister standing by the dying man’s side i see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor i see the man with a passion come kicking down that door i see the man of sorrow and his long troubled road i see the world on his shoulders and my easy load