Reflections from Brittany Accardi

The following are Commonplace Book passages and commentaries by Brittany Accardi, who took Social Justice in spring 2007.

Poverty and Riches/1 Interview Pages 33-34

“The things I notice the most seem like a joke. That is, here in the United States the most sought-after foods are low-calories. The most valued food in poor countries is food with calories. It’s understandable, but it’s an incredible contradiction. Here, the people want to eat food with as few calories as possible to not gain more weight and people in poor countries try to eat food with many calories to gain at least a little bit of weight. We come from very different contexts…The United States does have a very big influence. I believe that through the means of communication, such as the TV, the North American way of life is very present among other peoples. Some of the positive values are present here, but also many limits, such as when people from out cultures want only to imitate the North American way of life.”

This passage describes a very clear contradiction that it seems Americans should be aware of and yet it still seems that most of our country is so blind to it. I took a phone call in the middle of copying this passage, and in crossing the magazine racks at Barnes and Nobles I passed multiple covers about fat-burning exercises and slimming techniques. We are so narrow-minded. I feel like just being aware of the situation of people in other countries would prompt Americans psychologically to stop downing so much food and realize that their biggest problem shouldn’t be keeping weight off. And yet we are surrounded by excess due to the nature of our culture. The other part that struck me about this passage was the imbalance of communication and exposure of contrasting cultures. Sure, we have the news, but we aren’t exposed to the lifestyles of those in other countries. And I am sure that many Americans are unaware that our lifestyles are exposed and mimicked by those in other cultures. Why can’t there be more equal exchange? I think, for Americans at least, it would provide a greater understanding of our own culture, seeing it reflected through another group of people.

Seeing the World/2: page 58
“Art is thus a response to the world, but also a question to the world—both critical and creative. Art breathes exclamation marks, question marks, and ellipses into a world too easily constrained by periods.”

When I first read this passage I felt uneasy. This passage challenges me to use my voice. Art is something I always dream about pursuing, though I’ve never taken classes on art except through elementary and middle school. I suppose I often think that you need to major in something to do it well, though I know that isn’t true. We create art based on what we see and experience and feel. A lot of what I feel drawn to create artistically is about the unsettling things in the world…not just expressing a response or replication of the beautiful and nice things in our world, but the very real things, which include the terrible. I think these things can often be accompanied by a call to change and the question to the world most often, or at least the one I ask is, “Why?” Why is there hate/torture/failure/corruption/selfishness/inequality? And sometimes I feel like I’ve been given this urge to pose the question, or create the art, but I just stifle it because of one excuse or another. Though I hide it, I feel like the truth of the matter is that I am scared to be an exclamation point, metaphorically among a world of periods. Even now I feel a melodramatic flair of my call to be an exclamation point when I choose to remain a period, and feel that this paragraph could be something exemplary if I let it. Yet the posed question isn’t meant to lie here. The question is meant to lie out there. But since I do not put the question out there, it does remain in here, and I bring that desire for creativity and questioning to everything, because I haven’t created the outlet. In stifling the question and creativity, we create more problems than to ask the question and release the creativity. Just like how the student’s not asking a question in class causes more problems for the student, and the artist’s not asking the prophetic question through his art to his community causes more problems for his society, I feel that when I don’t pursue the question and ask it, I still cannot escape the urge to create. But in order to ask the question, we need information from which to derive a question. In taking this class, I have learned a fraction of the material out there, though significant, with which to use for inspiration to create.

Poem/2: To Write You Must Be a Spiritual Warrior by Sheri Hostetler, page 125

“I learned yesterday words like “artist” and “writer” are not
Violet and blue silk scarves but steel edges that cut
I must be a spiritual warrior who can heal self-inflicted wounds
I must be a spiritual warrior who can stave off my own self
I must be a spiritual warrior who stands tall in my own non-usefulness,
In my armor of ordinaire
I must be a spiritual warrior (this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done)
I must be a spiritual warrior who is content to be flotsam
While friends become institutionalized, recognized
I must be a spiritual warrior who feels all deeply and
Deeply detaches from all feelings
I must be a spiritual warrior who toes the line of my own truth
I must be a spiritual warrior who, with diamond cutter of mercy,
Extracts the vein of truth from the shale of lies
I must be a spiritual warrior who does not feed to the pigs the pearl
Of great price, who searches for the Holy Grail and is never
Content to find it
I must be a spiritual warrior who says, simply:
“This is who I am, I can be no other”
I must be a spiritual warrior who sees eternity in the present,
Divine comedy in suffering, tears in the facile
I must be a spiritual warrior who forgets about my self
And is only bloody pumping heart,
Split open like a pumpkin grown too large on the vine”

I love, love, LOVE this poem. My favorite lines are the first two, but I didn’t want to excerpt them without the rest. I like her use of metaphor, because it is actually a dynamic use of the literary term, not just something thrown into a work because it was literarily appropriate, and used just so that readers could say “Hey, lookee! A metaphor!” When I was first exposed to poetry, particularly children’s poetry, it was all about nice things and happy things and silly things that didn’t really mean anything. And yet, to be an artist that makes a difference to an outsider, one must touch on the deep things that matter in life. To touch on the real, solid things in life. She demonstrates her call to fight for art and poetry for what it exposes, even in the midst of success of others who are doing things that others might consider more “useful.” And yet, her work is so vital to the lives of others, for isn’t it true that while laborers take a break from the daily grind they pick up a book, turn on the radio, or visit a museum? Without artists, the daily laborers could not survive, and yet it is so difficult to fight for it because no one, until you actually produce something, will tell you that what you are doing is worth your time. Even then, some won’t admit the importance of discovering and exposing truth through expression. To reflect abstract truths that we all feel, but not all take the time to articulate.

Poverty and Riches/2 page 145
“Pedro: I’m convinced that consumerism, by definition, consumes humanity. It consumes freedom of spirit and creates insatiable appetites. If you have two, you want three; if you have three, you want four! We end up being well fed, but empty within.”

I recently wrote in my journal about this quote and how I don’t want my greatest concern to be whether or not I was well fed for the day. I want my concern to be for making change in the world. This quote is so very true-when I bake myself chocolate chip cookies, I find myself grabbing two or three and eyeing the second one before finishing my first, feeling the energy in my hand with the second cookie instead of in my mouth. And with that mentality, we can never be satisfied, because we are always looking to the next. It is such a daily thing, eating, but I think the way we eat (or practice eating) can really reflect out toward the way we live. Savor the cookie you’re eating. Savor the day you are living in. Savor the people you are around right now. This quote and others in The Book of Mev have actually inspired me to fight consumerism in food and materials. It seems that the daily task in my world at home is deciding what to make for dinner and where to go for lunch. It is my mother’s biggest concern. And yet it isn’t concern for herself; it’s concern for me, done out of love. Little does she know how much of a plague it is! Imagine, feeling that being well fed is a burden. I am also cleaning out my room, to be rid of all the excess that I do not use that could be a treasure for someone else. And yet, my motivation is not to help another out- it is to help myself out. To be rid of all the junk that prevents me from traveling light.

The Gospel According to Ann (The Human Form Divine/3) Interview, page 188

“Ann: And it makes me think there is something too passive about the way Catholic Worker accepts people how they are, over and over again, without really trying to make an intervention that will challenge people and call people to go forward. I think the Worker has done this through individual relationships. But, if I returned to the U.S., I’d have to be somewhere where I wasn’t just responding to emergencies and crises, I would want some sense that what I was doing had a real impact on other people and their future—the “training for transformation” idea. Here we call it capacitatión.”

This passage sparked a broader idea about social services in the United States and the nature of people in the United States as a whole. Reading this book and understanding the tenacity people have for living life makes me aware of the subtle lacking of this tenacity of people in the United States, though there are exceptions. Maybe it is truer with my generation, and though a stereotype, I feel it holds merit. I feel like people in the United States, especially my generation, and more specifically my family, lack urgency for life. We have so many resources, so many opportunities to make a difference or fill aspirations, and yet so many [college students] waste their life away of World of Warcraft, Facebook or mindless television. We have no urgency. And the thing is, it isn’t that we really care about the World of Warcraft, Facebook, or mindless television and movies. We do have dreams and aspirations! But what do we do to fill them? Many of us do nothing. And why don’t we? Do we lack the resources? No. Many of us are in college, and those of us who aren’t still have access to public education and libraries. So why are we in this situation? I suppose that is what I can’t figure out. People of other countries would kill for the academic resources that we have, the organizations willing to fund a worthy cause if provoked. It’s as if because we have fewer external obstacles, we create in ourselves internal obstacles such as “Well, I just can’t get motivated,” or “I will start changing the world after I find out what so-and-so is doing- that will better prepare me to make a change. It drives me crazy. Americans have the biggest pen in the world with the broadest pen stroke, yet are unwilling to make a mark. Even sitting here in Barnes and Nobles, I have access to so much education and information. I could learn physics. I could recite poetry. I could learn a language, a computer skill, a biography of a great (or not so great) leader. No one would stop me. And yet, I am immobile. I italicize immobile, because it demonstrates how rich my resources are. In an attempt to find a good word for “stationary, unbudging, paused, paralyzed” I logged onto the free Barnes and Nobles website on my laptop, searched “Thesaurus,” found where it was located in this store, walked over, picked it up, and leafed through it to find such a word as immobile. It is a process that people of other certain countries couldn’t imagine. When I was younger, in middle school, I would often sit in class, staring at the overhead projector and wonder what would occur if a caveman were able to be present and witness the projector. I think it would be a similar experience if someone of a third world country could sit with me in Barnes and Nobles and witness my actions. That is not to lessen the humanity or intelligence of those in the third world by comparing them to a caveman, but I really do think the experience would be similar. I’d see Barnes and Nobles in a new light- not just a store that is trying to sell me something which I can freely walk into, for as I said before, I could spend the day here to learn physics and never buy the book and no one would stop me. I’d finally see it as the rich, resourceful place it actually is, full of possibility for learning and opportunity. Why does it take such a meditative writing to see this?

Looking back at this passage, I see that I deviated from my purpose. I meant to also include that this lack of tenacity can be seen through the poor of our country. Few people struggle to achieve- people more often accept their lot in life, for rich or poor. Many poor people accept that they will always be poor, and many middle class and upper class people accept that they will follow in the footsteps of their family, or take for granted that they will follow in the footsteps of their family, whether that means going to college, becoming a doctor, or a restaurant owner. With the lack of capacitatión in our culture, its effects are most vibrant in the lives of the poor, who rely on handouts and food kitchens, who see themselves as victims, and most psychologically unable to continue on by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, after receiving the help people have to offer.

Facing the Facts/2 Death\, page 265
“Folks in Latin America often are saying “I’ll see you tomorrow, God willing.” I used to respond, “Of course God wills it!” Now I know why they say it—they live much closer to suffering and death than we do. Contingency.”

This quote really made me stop and think about my life and world in which I live. It’s so easy to say that we take life for granted being in a 1st world country, but hearing about the comparison shows so much more clearly how much we do take it for granted. Sometimes I think that everyone takes for granted that they will see their loved ones tomorrow, but I am becoming more aware that it is not necessarily the norm. Reading this passage makes me realize that not everyone does take it for granted. It makes me realize that there are people in my own country who probably do not take it for granted. How much sweeter life must be, not knowing whether you will see someone the day after tomorrow? Not that it is guaranteed that I will, but I never have had that experience of assuming my parents, my sister and friends will come home okay, and then be wrong (knock on wood). Not that I wish them not to be okay, but in some ways it would be a humbling reminder. Like I said, I have never had an experience like that, nor doubted the safety of my friends. Even with Andrea Heyse in Nicaragua right now, I look forward to seeing her in the springtime. How much more often must people of 3rd world countries experience that concept-contingency? And who can say whose is a fuller life? He who appreciated his family every day and died unexpectedly? Or he who had all of his expectations filled, reliably, and lived to an old age?

Reading/5, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, page 314

“Reader, have you ever stumbled, accidentally overheard, or discovered a few words that provided you with such anchor that you were freed to look on tempests and not be shaken> That spoke so personally, directly, unerringly to the emotionally constellated you at that exact moment, that in such breaking of verbal grace (or, if you prefer, musical phrase) your cup overflows with one sustaining truth you knew you needed but could not yet name?”

This occurrence happens so frequently to me, and for it I am grateful. What is startling to me is that so often the phrase is penned by a person who lived and died centuries before me. One such recent occurrence was with the writer Henry Longfellow, who wrote A Psalm for Life. I had been searching for motivation to stop sitting on my butt and start doing things. I am at a point in life where I feel that there is so much I want to accomplish, and yet so many daily duties that I am called to that I can barely reconcile the two and then decide which of the former should take precedence. I was wasting time on YouTube one day, where I found a kinetic text video that featured this very poem, and was so moved by its call to start living, because life is fleeting and all we can hope for is to leave a mark on it somehow for the better. I am a quote junkie, and so normally I surround myself with flowery motivational and inspirational quotes. This poem was nothing of the sort. Its writing was quite frank, with no flowers. And its call alerted me more than anything I had read as a result of searching for something to say exactly what he did say. I was also struck by the way the maker of the video set Longfellow’s text of the poem to music, in a way that could only be done in the 21st century. It was a beautiful exchange between the past and the present.

Prayer/4: Saint Teresa of Avila page 345

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
No hands but yours,
No feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to
Look out
Christ’s compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
Doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to
Bless men [and women] now.”

I’ve heard this poem before, and it has always radiated with me, but only in the context of this book has it provoked such a greater sense of accountability in me. It is a pointing finger in my direction, in everyone’s direction, to act and take up what each person can in order to bring a fuller sense of the presence of God to the world. At the same time, it still puzzles me. It strikes me as one of those quotes which at one point in your life means one thing, and that at another point it will gain a greater meaning in light of certain circumstances. Lines 4, 5, and 6 is harder for me to grasp than the first 3 lines, but as I said before, it seems like a great sense of accountability is meant to be and is imposed on the reader. The message is, “If you don’t let Christ live through you, then He will not be present on earth, which makes logical sense to me. I suppose the puzzling thing to me is that while the poem is instructive, it still leaves the specifics so open. Though that must be the point, because I believe everyone has a unique role in the manifestation of God on earth, and if this poem is meant to help and instruct a multitude of people, it can’t get too specific. I guess I just wish the directions were like a recipe, where God says, “First do this, then add that, mix it together and there you have it…your part is complete!”