I Will Never Be Able to Do Enough...Even So

...I can do something.

These past few months I have been profoundly grieved at the worsening global food crisis which has emerged as a result of a perfect storm of global events. In recent days the the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has been holding an emergency summit in Rome to address the current food crisis. Today they announced a significant increase in funding which will allow the hardest hit countries "to grow enough food for themselves in the coming planting seasons, as well as [help] them to achieve continuing food security through investment in agriculture and research."

Earlier today BBC News reported significant resistance to this plan at the Rome Summit from Latin American countries as they are apparently benefiting too much from the cultivation of crops for biofuel (not the sole cause of the global food crisis, but undoubtedly one element of the perfect storm).

I have felt overwhelmed by this global food crisis, especially once the catastrophes hit in Burma/Myanmar and China last month. All of these have been spinning around in my mind particularly in relation to the scripture from several Sundays ago in which we are reminded that God's eye is on the sparrow. It is so difficult for me, as a person of privilege who wants for nothing, to read that scripture of God's loving care for human beings even while unfathomable numbers of people are dying daily from hunger, catastrophically in natural disasters, and horrifically as a result of corrupt government practices.

In their 11th Hour Preacher Party for the Birds & Lilies week over at the RevGal's site, many of the preachers were focusing on the command Jesus issued for people not to worry. This was also what my own pastor focused on that Sunday in worship. I know it is a hugely important focus for our 21st century, North American context. But I found myself struggling with it in light of everything I've already mentioned here.

"I am wondering," I wrote in a comment on the RevGal site that day, "how I can better incarnate God's eyes and hands to help provide for others in an aching, suffering, starving world? I do worry: that I'm not doing enough and never can do enough."

Since articulating those words for the first time a few weeks ago, they have stayed with me like some kind of irritant, like sand in an oyster. I am letting it work on me and in me. It is variously confrontational to my spirit and my living; it is upsetting; unsettling; and it is asking of me to do something.

Even in the midst of this ever-present irritant, I have found myself, well, hungering for hope. If I cannot do enough, if I cannot fathom these many unrelenting deaths, if governments and corporations are just so corrupt--then what? How do I have hope in the face of these realities? In the face of death?

I have glimpsed hope in two people over the past couple weeks, two witnesses to hope: Howard Zinn and Dorothee Solle.

In his article "The Optimism of Uncertainty" published in The Nation on September 2, 2004, Howard Zinn writes:

"If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

I absolutely love this image of the future being an infinite succession of presents. And the notion that by acting even in the smallest ways, we contribute to the shaping of that future in significant ways.

The other witness to hope came to me this morning as I was re-reading Dorothee Solle's fantastic book Thinking About God. She writes:

"In a conversation about the situation of the peoples oppressed by Western countries, a young Swiss teacher recently asked me from where I could derive my hope. At first I wanted to reply to him, 'From my faith in God, who once rescued an oppressed people from slavery under a great military power.' But then it struck me that it is not 'my' faith which bears me up. It is really the faith and the hope of the poor who do not give up. As long as they do not despair and give up, as long as they go on, we do not have the least right, whining and resigned in an analysis which counts money and weapons but does not see the pride and the combativeness of the violated, to say, 'There is nothing one can do'" (20).

Despair, Solle seems to be suggesting, is an emotion of the privileged. Tossing up my hands, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of this aching world, is a privileged choice. I will never be able to do enough...even so...I can do something today.

For about ten days now I have started my morning by visiting The Hunger Site. I click through each tab on the site, which manages to bend even our consumerism toward justice. It is, in the spirit of Zinn's reminder, a very small action. But I am hoping that by making this small action a part of my morning spiritual discipline, it will be a part of that infinite succession of presents that contribute to the future.

Even as I click on each tab, the irritant troubles me again and again. It is not enough! And I must not be fooled into thinking it is. But it is an action which, done prayerfully, roots me in the world's need, enacts a small contribution toward justice, and troubles my spirit to continue to look to do something more.

Learning from the Monk

I walked with Monk over to the protest today, figuring it is an opportunity for him to see a pretty significant event in the life of our country. I had seen, before leaving work, that the riot police had been called in at lunch time today, but it sounded like all was relatively calm again.

The anti-war protesters are set up right in front of City Hall and the counter-protesters are located directly across the street in the park. The road between the two remains open and is not even backed up with traffic. I'm terrible at estimating crowds, but I'd say there were probably about 200 people present. I expect the crowd will grow on both sides as the 7:00 meeting draws near.

As we approached, we heard a speaker on the counter-protesters' side shouting into a PA system. She was maintaining that the anti-war protesters were traitors of the United States. "And what do we do with traitors?" she implored. "We lock them up and throw away the key!" she answered her own question. (I was so thankful she didn't invoke the death penalty as I'd feared when I heard her question!) A sparse cheer went up in response. Huh.

As we walked in among the Code Pink protesters, I tried to place my body in front of the poster-sized photographs of torture victims from Abu-Ghraib on display so I could hide them from Monk's view. I think I succeeded. We stood for a little while and listened as the women from Code Pink sang We Shall Not Be Moved. There were maybe a dozen women, arm and arm, dressed in pink, swaying and singing the song. Although my first reaction was disappointment at hearing another one of the old sixties protest songs being dragged out of the dusty past, I noticed, as we listened to them, that because they were singing, they couldn't hear the hurtful things being shouted about them from across the way. I noticed, too, that it was only women's voices that I was hearing on both sides of the street. That intrigues me no end.

We didn't stay long. As we walked away, Monk began to speak angrily about the counter-protesters calling folks traitors. He was upset by the rhetoric. You know, he probably talked for about 45 minutes nonstop after that. He is at an age where things are very black and white, right or wrong. Clear moral principles and clear ways to live them out.

I found myself wanting to temper his comments, to try and lift up the subtleties at work on both sides of the street. But he was frustrated by that. He was angry that the "other side" (the counter-protesters, from his perspective) were resorting to weak arguments that were off-issue, basically. They were not arguing their perspective from its own merit, but using inflammatory and distracting language instead.

Eventually, it brought him to theological questions. He wanted to know why Christians are not all committed to nonviolence when that was everything Jesus was about. He wanted to know if President Bush even went to a church. (I assured him he did, though I marvel at it as well.) Ultimately, he wanted to know how God could love people who said hurtful things and deliberately mislead people. I told him that God surely loves everyone. And Monk said he imagines God pulling his hair out at night, fretting like a sixth grader with a big project due the next day.

When I tried to offer my understanding of why some Christians (most?) are not nonviolent, Monk was not satisfied. He shook his head: "Love is always stronger than death!" He asserted strongly. Then he offered an unlikely analogy: "It's like a Great White Shark and a hunk of raw steak. The Great White Shark would totally destroy the steak! The Great White Shark is love!"

"But," I suggested, "a lot of people might have to die before love defeats an oppressive government."

He was quiet for a moment. "True," he said, feeling some of the weight of it. "But violence, killing someone, never leads to a better situation. It never accomplishes anything."

"It is a statement of faith," I said, "to say that love is stronger than death."

"Yeah," he responded. "It is."

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

These Days

God is breaking my heart at every turn.

1. On Monday night at 9:00 I went to Target to get some food options in for Monk's lunches. While there, I encountered a mother, her friend, and a baby girl--hardly a toddler, just big enough to stand in the cart and cry. Which she did. Wail. Not a temper tantrum cry, but a heart-wrenching, hold-me-Mama, grief-stricken, lonely cry. Her mother was utterly, viciously indifferent, even cruel. At times screaming back at her daughter (as the adult friend laughed) in mimic of the baby's cry. Around the store I caught the eyes of other women (all women) who were as bewildered, horrified, helpless as I felt. There was nothing I could do, I was convinced, that wouldn't further endanger this child. A confrontation of the mother, I feared, would only be taken out on the baby before the end of the night. I came home and wept myself--for all the unloved, inconvenient babies.

2. The next morning I parked in my spot at the seminary. There was a small basket of brilliant yellow tiny narcissus flowers on the ground just beside my car. I park right next the dumpster and wondered if they'd meant to be thrown away but missed the mark. I got out of my car and picked them up. It was drizzling rain, getting ready for another rainy season, January drenching just as we'd suffered last Friday. As I picked up the flowers (turns out they weren't real, but still lovely in their own right), I saw something stir in the dumpster beside me. I looked over and there was a man sitting in our dumpster. He was rolling what I can only hope was a joint and not something worse. "Are you okay?" I asked him. "Yeah," he said, hardly looking up. "Are you sure?" I asked. "Yeah," he said, not looking up from his rolling papers, "I'm alright." I took the flowers into my office and set them on my windowsill beside my Julian of Norwich icon. Now whenever I notice the flowers I pray for the man in the dumpster and the baby in the cart. It doesn't seem like enough.

3. The past 24 hours at the seminary we hosted a conference on Restorative Justice. The hopefulness of the gospel message was muted by the whiteness of the presentation, making the gospel ultimately unhearable. As much hope as was instilled in me was matched by the hopelessness of unreflective whiteness.

4. Soon after the conference, a psychotic homeless woman was forcibly taken into custody from in front of the seminary where she had been raging all day.

4. Came home to burgeoning gang members hanging out in the park across the street.

And that is why I say: God is breaking my heart at every turn.

Faith Guiding Our Votes

I was sadly disappointed, for the most part, in the Sojourners sponsored CNN event Faith Guiding Our Votes, broadcast on a special edition of The Situation Room last evening. I can't imagine Sojourners was that pleased with it either.

For the most part, the questions asked by Soledad O'Brien, the moderator of the event, still represented a narrow-minded, deeply personal understanding of what it means to be a person of faith. I was astounded to see her lead off the event with a question posed to John Edwards: "Do you believe in creationism or evolutionism?" When Edwards answered immediately: "I believe in evolutionism," O'Brien followed up by asking: "So does that mean everyone who believes the world was created in six days is wrong? And their pastors are wrong?"

O'Brien's closing question for Edwards was downright salacious: "What is the greatest sin you ever committed?"

Barack Obama was offered the most relevant questions--in terms of faith and politics--when O'Brien asked about the war on terror and Israel/Palestine. Even there, however, the trajectory of her questions were sensationalist rather than searching: "Does God take a side on the War on Terror? In other words," O'Brien follows up, "Is God on the side of the U.S. troops?"

Obama raised the level of the evening's discussion by drawing on communal understandings of faith and responsibility, quoting from Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln several times.

When Hillary Clinton took the seat, O'Brien sank to an all time low. Without hesitating, O'Brien immediately asked Clinton "Did your faith help you through the difficult time of your husband's infidelity?" Soon after, O'Brien giggles after asking Clinton an equally personal question: "It's just us girls talking." What?!

These questions have absolutely no bearing on Hillary Clinton's campaign for the presidency. And, like Edwards' "worst sin" question, they were questions borne out of an utter lack of sophistication on issues of faith. I couldn't help but think of Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter in each of these instances--the public shaming of individuals in the name of religion.

What was most discouraging about it, I think, is the overprivatized notion of faith--that matters of faith are only deeply personal and have no public purpose. To my great disappointment, questions of faith were not expanded in last night's forum, despite Jim Wallis's persistent effort to reintroduce the issue of poverty each time the microphone was handed to him.

I had expected that Sojourners would have had more say over the entire selection of questions posed to each candidate--especially when each person was only given a total of fifteen minutes to speak. Unfortunately, they didn't. And in my view, the intersection of faith and politics was muddied all the more.

Here is CNN's summary of the event.