Antes de que Barack Obama se postulara a la presidencia, recuerdo que pensaba que nunca habría un presidente negro en mi vida. Y recuerdo que me sentí abrumado, incluso con lágrimas en los ojos, cuando vi por televisión a la nueva familia presidencial subir al escenario en el Grant Park de Chicago. No fue tanto la imagen del presidente Obama lo que me impactó, sino ver a Michelle y a las niñas, y a la anciana suegra de Barack, que vivirían con dignidad y respeto en la Casa Blanca.
Read MoreBefore Barack Obama ran for president, I remember thinking there would never be a black president in my lifetime. And I remember feeling overwhelmed, even tearful, when I watched on television as the new First Family walked on the stage at Grant Park in Chicago. It wasn’t so much the sight of President Obama that got to me. It was seeing Michelle and the girls, and Barak’s aged mother-in-law who would be living in dignity and esteem in the White House.
Read MoreRead MoreTheir way of speaking as important as their quips. If I give you the details, you’d get distracted because tone and feelings were primary. Feelings I remember now: sad, humor, giggles, sliced thin truth, clever melancholy, thick sadness.
All of that in one-liner feelings. Eight minutes, 23 seconds.
Read MoreSu forma de hablar es tan importante como sus bromas. Si te doy los detalles, te distraerías porque el tono y los sentimientos eran primordiales. Sentimientos que recuerdo ahora: tristeza, humor, risas, verdad finamente cortada, melancolía inteligente, tristeza espesa.
Todo eso en sentimientos de una sola línea. Ocho minutos, 23 segundos.
Un bebé, dentro de un útero, esperando nacer. Dos padres, solteros, buscando algún lugar, porque María sentía que su cuerpo se contraía. Mientras el imperio no lanzaba bombas sobre Mary, peligrosos soldados del imperio acechaban, hablando de la urgencia y la necesidad de una ubicación, para ella y el bebé.
Read MoreA Western perspective on Advent focuses on individualism – reinforces existing structures; it ignores the reality of social structures, reducing structural problems to personal problems. Mary couldn’t find a place to give birth. Yes, the villagers were selfish, but the system also made it normal to perpetrate against an oppressed people, even a mother in active labor.
Read MoreRead More“If people don't vote, everything stays the same. You can protest until the sky turns yellow or the moon turns blue, and it's not going to change anything if you don't vote.”
Delores Huerta
Latina American labor leader and civil rights activist
Read MoreThere is no reason for my children, whether in Spanish or English, to find it necessary to use words meant to depict the power over another with their historical context of 400 years (because the majority Africans were trafficked to Latin America as well). Therefore, there are words that we know, within their historically significant context, but don’t speak directed at other humans.
Read MoreMichelle Obama says, “When they go low, we go high.” My dear African American colleague reminds me that supremacy creates a false dichotomy of the choices you have in a scenario – creating false equivalencies which are rarely true.
I share this quote from Ignacio, “"The homeostatic vision leads us to distrust everything that is change and disequalibrium, to think badly of all that represents rupture, conflict and crisis. From this perspective, it becomes hard, more or less implicitly, for the disequilibrium inherent in social struggle not to be interpreted as a form of personal disorder (do we not speak of people who have 'lost their balance'?) and for the conflicts generated by overthrowing the social order not to be considered as pathological."
Read MoreIt has been a year of recognizing deep systemic injustice, longing for change and questioning, “Who are we to be with one another? How are we to be with one another?” Advent is about waiting, gestational waiting. Who are your role models for expectant waiting to birth something long overdue?
This Advent season, perhaps it’s time to sing a new song? Let it begin with me.
Read MoreThe thought of Christmas brings me both joy and grief. Every. Single. Year. And every single year I pull out Christmas music and gravitate to “Oh Holy Night” by Mariah Carey. As a teenager, I discovered her Christmas album and had one of those ancient cassette tapes - connected to a wire - connected to my CD player. Am I even remembering that right? It was a sort-of-conversion device to play compact discs in my car. (That’s a clue to just how old I am.)
Read MoreRead MoreWisdom is grounded in embodied knowing, holding complexity without losing conviction. We must imagine a third way.
God doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t grow tired or weary. My burdens or the burdens of those I love are never too much for him.
Instead, Jesus invites us to allow him to carry all that weighs heavily on us.
Read MoreI hope you would see me
Before a hashtag precedes my name
Before my face is a mural on a brick façade
I hope you would see me
Read MoreTime flies. And the formless, empty places of my heart, are a greater part, partially because I cannot find my heart. A heart where spaces feel empty – like before they were transformed.
Read MoreI want to mourn, I want to grieve, but I’m not ready to be comforted, not yet. I won’t be rushed to be comforted. I won’t be rushed to let go of my anger. I won’t be rushed through my rage. I cannot be. I don’t want to be. I want to linger.
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Young-Hak Hyun, Korean TheologianRead MoreI’ve not had a good relationship with grief. My wise friend, Gloria Huh (on #thearisepodcast this week) shared with me that regardless of my awareness, I’ve been building a relationship with grief. Well, she’s right. My relationship with grief is not open or welcoming. It’s stiff, resistant, and at times, hostile.
