April, 2007

Monday 30 April 2007

Most weekends this semester, I’ve been hanging out with Poornima Shah, who took my theology course in the fall of 2005. We’ll meet downtown at Gelateria, or at Kayak’s near Wash U, or 6 North Coffee near SLU, or at Coffee Oasis in the Central West End to discuss politics (Palestine, Israel, and U.S. policy), spirituality (teachings from the saints and sages of India), and life at SLU (and the need to focus when there’s so much to do). One of the driving forces behind The One World project, a Med Scholar, and a major in political science, Poornima has walked with me for the last year and a half, inspiring and challenging me as she goes.

I recently asked her if she’d like to join me in the practice of daily meditation and she readily agreed. I meditate along the lines of Sri Eknath Easwaran, with whom I had the privilege of doing a retreat in January 1991. Sometimes, I’ll send Poornima an email with quotations like the following from Sarada Devi, the wife of Sri Ramakrishna, the influential 19th century Bengali mystic: “I tell you one thing: if you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather learn to see your own faults. Learn to see the whole world as your own. No one is a stranger my child: this whole world is your own.”

Last week, after her morning meditation, Poornima sent me the following reflection:
I love when you close your eyes
and you can see the Red.
I think I have a new lover
- if breeze were a man,
I would fall head over heels,
his touch has the same effect on me
as Krishna’s flute had on the Gopis.

With her passion and compassion, her ability to recognize the goodness in others, and her hunger for justice, Poornima has been one of my teachers since October 2005. She is a blessing to the SLU campus.

Given Jesuit theologian Jon Sobrino’s recent investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I think it may be worthwhile to post the interview Mev did with him in El Salvador in 1993.

Poverty and Riches/3

In addition to making it a priority to spend time with Ann in Guarjila, Mev also traveled to the University of Central America in San Salvador where the Jesuit intellectuals had been murdered in November 1989 by military trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas. Like hundreds, if not thousands by now, of North Americans, Mev had a profound experience visiting the memorial room that had books and photographs documenting the Jesuit assassinations. For Mev, looking at those photos was a heartrending, moving and inspiring experience. At that time, theologian Jon Sobrino popped in and offered hospitality to the North American pilgrims. Sobrino kindly gave a tour of the rose garden in memory of the dead. Mev also got some time alone to ask Sobrino, a native Spaniard, to reflect on the nature of his fidelity.

Mev: What inspired your own faith commitment?

Jon: I entered the Society of Jesus in 1956, at 18. At the time, it was a response to a call of God, but at that moment the poor weren’t very present in my consciousness. Twenty years ago I moved to El Salvador. What brought me forward were the tiny miracles I saw in front of me, the poverty of the people made me say, “We have to change this reality.”

And, in my case, I came here after Fr. Ellacuría and Fr. Rutilio Grande arrived. They killed Rutilio soon after I arrived, then I lived with Ignacio Ellacuría for 16 years! They began a road that I started to follow, as a priest and professionally as a theologian. I gradually began to interiorize this commitment. There was no one dramatic moment — it was simply a matter of living in this world and trying to do good. But then began the bombs at the UCA and the murders. Then one has to make an option and really define oneself.

Mev: What does the option for the poor mean for people who, like me, are born into a country or a class of privilege?

Jon: You mean a person like me! Simply put, this option can have various expressions. One of them is to live with the poor, but there are few who do that and it isn’t what the poor most need. The option for the poor means to make an effort to see reality from where the poor are. Concretely, we must put our resources at the service of the poor. You know, in our country one can’t be a priest without also gaining prestige, and this is a form of “wealth,” as are buildings, books, intellectual development, etc. The point is that we put all of these riches at the service of the poor. This can be done in an immediate form or in a structural manner.

Mev: One of my American friends working in El Salvador said, “I am one of the oppressors because I have a refrigerator.” She considers herself rich because she has material things.

Jon: In a country of such poverty, one can certainly feel this way. But I feel that in a country like this poverty for us is practically impossible! We are not poor. What I ask of us is a bit of austerity. And then, we should use those resources we do have at the service of the poor. But I don’t have any scruples about having a refrigerator or TV — on a TV we see the news and learn what’s going on. Sometimes on Sundays, I relax a little bit. This doesn’t bother me.

Monsignor Romero was not poor — he knew this clearly. But he was austere. He lived very simply and modestly. But the nuns brought him an orange juice every day! In our country, that is not poor.

Mev: Do you think that our strongest connection with the poor is in the circumstances that we do not opt for, our own personal sufferings, such as loneliness?

Jon: I would formulate this differently. Loneliness for me is worse than an option for the poor. Solidarity with the poor is working and being with them so that they stop being poor. And how do we feel, I who am not poor? I feel most like the poor not when I go without a car, but in the most existential struggles of life, such as loneliness.

But I distinguish between poverty and human suffering. Poverty is one human situation that produces much suffering. The poor suffer. We see this in famine victims in Africa. There is also much suffering that is not from poverty. What matters to me is to say that we have solidarity in our struggles, but my suffering is very distinct from the poverty that poor people suffer.

Mev: Gustavo Gutiérrez writes that spirituality comes before theology. What spirituality sustains you in your life work?

Jon: I am 54 years old and many things have already happened in my life. For me every day is more simple. More than anything, what sustains me is love. I’ve received love and affection from simple people, who don’t know me but animate me. But to speak more specifically, Rutilio Grande and Ignacio Ellacuría were good people who truly loved. I felt from Ellacuría not only our friendship, but I saw that he truly loved people. Not just the love of friendship and tenderness which we experience at a personal level, but the sweeping current of love in history.

I feel I also belong to this current of love in history. There are also currents of hate in history. But I have seen these strong currents of love coming from other people to me, but I also have been able to love other people. This is personal but also structural. This is a strong source of meaning.

Also, when I see love, I see hope. To have hope in this world is absolutely absurd! In spite of that absurdity, we have hope. Now, to put all of this in a context of Christian faith, the mystery of Christian faith is like a reserve of love, hope, tenderness, solidarity, and although history negates this, it still journeys on!

In other words, like Micah says, “Acting justly, loving tenderly, walking humbly with God.” This, for me, is the truth, the fundamental truth. We live as well as we can, but I try to live by this.

Andrew Kirschman, SJ

How do we mourn? This is the overwhelming question that has stuck with me since reading The Book of Mev by Mark Chmiel. Living freely to embrace all that life throws at us while at the same time not holding on or clinging to what we hold most dear…I wonder if the way we mourn offers us insights into who we are as individuals and as community?

In The Book of Mev, Dr. Chmiel offers various reflections on this theme. The major part of the book focuses on his journey with the woman he fell in love with and gave his life to. And maybe that is the key: falling in love. It opened him to being with his wife in the peak moments as well as in the painful, lonely and heartbreaking moments. In the final chapters of the book Dr. Chmiel writes of his work in justice movements and travels to the Middle East – another expression of what love continues to open and call him towards.

I am touched by the honesty of the book – both in regards to how it expresses who Mev Puleo was as a person as well as who Mark Chmiel, the author and husband, has become. Dorothy Day was noted for saying she did not want to be named a saint because of the distance that title would put between her and the stories of real people. This is a story that brings a human dimension to someone (Mev) who in some circles and over time has grown larger than life.

I am also struck by the way the book speaks of “the struggle is one” – both the title of Mev’s book and an image articulated over and over in the book. In the personal stories relayed in the life of Mev, we hear how Dr. Chmiel, Mev and their families surrounded themselves with good people – people who where willing to just “be with” if and when that was what was needed. This “struggle is one” – one person, a couple, a family, a community – has the power to transcend individuality and move towards capturing universal experiences. This “struggle is one” becomes a struggle that I would like to think all readers can identify with and thus it becomes the struggle of all. It is the struggle for an authentic life of integrity; the struggle of acceptance that life is delicate and yet meant to be lived to the fullest in whatever form that may take; the struggle for connection with humanity; the acknowledgement that we are not alone in this world and that even our suffering can be a way of building solidarity across the globe (isn’t that what Mev’s photography work does?). The “struggle of one” becomes the struggle for all.

The Book of Mev illustrates a person deeply loved – and tragically lost too young. This loss is a loss that must be mourned and mourned well. Dr. Chmiel offers insights into how he lets his heart give so much and despite the hurt, remains open to being broken again. The temptation is to fall into growing cynical or giving in to despair. Jon Sobrino, S.J. writes that despair is the greatest sin because it denies the possibility that God can overcome any obstacle we face. When we do not let the mourning process take place we can easily fall into cynicism and despair. Mourning becomes an important way of remembering, honoring and eventually celebrating the past in the hopes of letting it break open into a freedom to give more fully to others. As the book demonstrates, mourning allows us to use our hurts and losses to bind us more deeply with the sufferings and hurts of our world.

Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., one of the Jesuit Martyrs from El Salvador raised the question, “who are the crucified people in the world today?” When we identify those on the cross, we are invited to stand at the foot of the cross and work in the process of taking the crucified people down from the cross. There is a level of urgency in the issues our world faces – at the bare minimum we are called to be people of accompaniment. An indication that the mourning process is fulfilled is when we are free to give ourselves to others, in a deeper way – a way that we discover throughout The Book of Mev.

I am grateful for the honesty and humility shared in this story.

Andrew Kirschman, SJ
UCA, San Salvador, El Salvador

Friday 16 March 2007

I am thinking of Jimmy Carter and Rachel Corrie, in how they are quite similar. Not on the surface, for who could more dissimilar: A young college student and an august former statesman. But I can think of two ways, and the first way leads to the second way of similarity.

I am fond of quoting Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s 4th precept from his Order of Interbeing: “Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering by all means, including personal contact and visits, images, sound. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world.”

What Corrie and Carter have in common is that they both chose to go to Palestine and opened their eyes, and hearts to the suffering of the Palestinian people, Corrie only once, Carter many times (I saw him when I was there in 1990, we went to a service at St. George’s in East Jerusalem).

Here’s a long excerpt from one of Corrie’s emails:

I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what’s going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don’t know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I’m not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me - Ali - or point at the posters of him on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice my limited Arabic by asking me, “Kaif Sharon?” “Kaif Bush?” and they laugh when I say, “Bush Majnoon”, “Sharon Majnoon” back in my limited arabic. (How is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) Of course this isn’t quite what I believe, and some of the adults who have the English correct me: “Bush mish Majnoon” … Bush is a businessman. Today I tried to learn to say, “Bush is a tool”, but I don’t think it translated quite right. But anyway, there are eight-year-olds here much more aware of the workings of the global power structure than I was just a few years ago.

Nevertheless, no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can’t imagine it unless you see it - and even then you are always well aware that your experience of it is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and the fact, of course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean. When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint with the power to decide whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home again when I’m done.

Corrie wasn’t there very long, several weeks, and yet, she was able to see a small part of the reality (as my Ramallah friends told me after our detention: “Now you have a very small taste of what we go through all the time”).

Here’s are a few passages from Carter’s book, Palestine Peace not Apartheid, which, I believe, were able to be written because of his “contact” with Palestinians in Palestine:

When we arrived there in January 1996, it was obvious that the Israelis had almost complete control over every aspect of political, military, and economic existence of the Palestinians within the West Bank and Gaza. [141]

This honeycomb of settlements and their interconnecting conduits effectively divide the West Bank into at least two noncontiguous areas and multiple fragments, often uninhabitable or even unreachable… [151]

Utilizing their political and military dominance, [Israeli leaders] are imposing a system of partial withdrawal, encapsulation, and apartheid on the Muslim and Christian citizens of the occupied territories. The driving purpose for the forced separation of the two peoples in unlike that in South Africa—not racism, but the acquisition of land. There has been a determined and remarkably effective effort to isolate settlers form Palestinians, so that a Jewish family can commune from Jerusalem to their highly subsidized home deep in the West Bank on roads from which others are excluded, without ever coming into contact with any facet of Arab life. [189-190]

In addition to cutting off about 200,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem from their relatives, property, schools, and businesses, the wall is designed to complete the enclosure of a severely truncated Palestine, a small portion of its original size, compartmentalized, divided into cantons, occupied by Israeli security forces, and isolated from the outside world. [195]

For all those who lambaste the Palestinians as terrorists, as fanatic Islamists, and scum unworthy of a state, I can’t help but wonder: Ever been there? Ever tried to get from point A to B? Ever talked with someone who’d been jailed for being a young Palestinian male? Even see the wounds of a victim of collateral damage? Ever look into the eyes of a father whose home has just been demolished?

Corrie and Carter took the initiative to go to Palestine, to see it for themselves, and try to communicate to others what their seeing meant to them.

The second similarity stems from this first: Both of them have been defamed, Corrie posthumously (she asked for it, she supported the terrorists, she was stupid, deranged, etc.), Carter currently (he’s anti-Semitic, he’s Hamas’s representative in the U.S., he’s a Nazi).

But really, all what I am writing here is something that was summarized some time ago, I don’t even know the name of the person who coined the expression, so characteristic of the prophets of ancient times: to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable.

To comfort the afflicted, you have to see them, hear their tears, listen to their heart-rending stories, and offer your presence. You have to connect.

And when you speak on behalf of the afflicted, and criticize their oppressors, it’s to be expected that flak and obloquy will be coming in your direction.

Yes, it takes courage to take on the Establishment. And it takes courage to stand before an Israeli bulldozer. I hope that at some point, Jimmy Carter can see a performance of My Name is Rachel Corrie. Like the Palestinian people, she, too, will find a place in his heart.