Preaching on Christmas Day

It has become the practice that for the shared Christmas Services with Immanuel Lutheran Church and St. Elias Christian Church I preach on Christmas day. The sermon I preached this morning can be found here.

I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts, as I take seriously God become human, but do it from the side of God who is beyond our universe and source of all that is.  This sort of understanding of God, moves god beyond, or so it seems to me, in such a way that I'm not sure I'm taking things "literally" at least not the way many American Christians understand taking the Bible literally.  I don't know, maybe you have some thoughts after reading the sermon.

Images from B1 E Gallery Dia De Los Muertos

I have an album up of the Gallery B1 E turned into a chapel for a Dia de Los Muertos exhibit.  It will run for the next few weeks, gallery is open in the evenings.  I lead Vespers services in the gallery on the Feast of All Saints and the Feast of All Souls (day of the dead).  The work is by various artists though the shrines are mostly  Andy De La Rosa's(the owner of the Gallery). The mural behind the Altar is an icon I wrote a year and a half ago, and some of my icons are in the show.
Praying the psalms among artists and those variously involved with Occupy Chicago has a sightly different tenor and was quite raw.  I may do one or two more services there during the run.  At least that was the original plan when Andy De La Rosa  had thought up this exhibition.  But that original plan had an opening before Nov 1 which did not happen.  So we'll see.  Also, I might be at the gallery in the evenings in the next two weeks writing icons in the gallery while the gallery is open.

Intentional Community and Occupy Wall Street (Chicago...)

I'm the prior of an intentional Christian community, The community of the Holy Trinity, we have a blog. I wrote a post on where our Rule of life might meet up with the Occupy movement, you can find the post here.

Questions for Occupy Wall street/ America

I want to begin to say that I defend the right of those who are assembling and expressing their desire for change and outrage.  Nothing of what follows should either be interpreted as siding with those who would wish to curtail this activity or deny the right of this form of expression.  Also, in general I am in agreement with the implicit criticism of the financial system and that much of its practices are unethical. I too am outraged at the disparity of wealth that exists.
That said I have some questions for those in this movement of protest.  I understand that there is reluctance or inability to speak for the movement so I ask this of those who are participating.  I gather that part of what is desired is conversation that leads to change, so I ask questions.

1) What else are you doing - have you been doing? Its an honest question.  Are you even in small ways disentangling yourselves from the system against which you are protesting?
2) Some seem to be asking for a voice in the system: Do you really want a voice in a system this broken?
3) Are you aware that there are people who have set up alternatives to the system against which you are protesting, giving up privileges and even a middle class lifestyle?  If you aren't aware of such people and communities I encourage you when you are done seek them out. Learn from them seek to create alternatives.
4)  Do you believe democratizing and reforming the financial system will eradicate the problems with the system? What if the problems are endemic to the system no matter how much we attempt to control the system?
5) Doesn't this crisis and the havoc it has wrecked upon the middle class and poor, show that greater access to the system is not in the best interests of the poor and middle class?  We need to examine that in part this crisis was created as loans were given in the name of expanding the "American Dream" to those who hand not had access to it before. A noble goal if Americanism is true and good.  Are you willing to question some of the fundamental stories, mythologies and fables Americans tell themselves about the world and our place in it?
6) Do you really want to have greater participation in a system of power and wealth based upon "making money"?
7) Are you aware of the degree to which you and all of us in the USA are beneficiaries (as well as victims) of this system?  I mean this seriously, some of us are more victims then beneficiaries others of us more entwined in the system and its benefits.  So you who are on the streets have you examined yourselves and your place in the system and your own culpability?
8) What if the creation and expansion of the American Middle classes even the raising up of the poor in the US was based upon injustice and oppression outside the US?
9) Do you believe you are paying prices for your food, your clothing, you technology, your luxuries that truly provides for a living and fair for those who produce it and deliver it to you?
10) to put it another way are you always looking for the least expensive product or service?  If so it is at least plausible that someone in the line of production and delivery has been exploited for your savings. Do you know for sure that those who provide you with your products and services (your internet connection and devices upon which you tweet this movement) are paid equitably?
11) Would you pay more and do with less to ensure that people could have a living by providing you with your goods and services.
12) are you willing to provide for yourself and your community?  Or How are you outsourcing your life in ways that are exploitative?  Are you willing to change and have less for a more equitable world?

It would be fair to ask me if I could answer these questions.  I will admit my own questions are challenges to me as well.  What I can say is that I have made choices that in part at least lessen my dependence and involvement upon the system.  But I ask these questions because I am acutely aware of the degree to which I at best can live only in resistance to what is.  I ask these questions painfully aware of my own complicity.  For instance I haven't bought a new computer in over ten years. But this means living off donated technology.  I benefit from someone elses participation in the system, I'm still in it.  There are people I know who are doing much more.  I'm no paragon of virtue here.  But I have found I can do with less, and I am seeking to create pockets of an alternate way of being in the midst of what is.  I struggle with the system in myself.  I have benefited from the system and its practices, I have depended upon the financiers of the world.  I have bought the lie that making a living and making money are synonymous.  I also have turned aside from this but it lurks , and like Trent Resnor at the end of the Head Like a Hole video, I (and I think we all are) entangled. And our entanglement is in at least a small part our own doing.  We all have worshiped at the altar of god money.


I will admit thought that these questions have a theological and spiritual basis.  I do not believe that our hope  comes from greater access to the halls the control the Moneyed wealth and Power of the world.  In fact I believe the hope for the transformation of the world has its origins in a Jewish peasant carpenter executed by the Roman Empire 2000 years ago.  While the movement that obscure peasant spawned caleld the Church and his Body in the world did confront and was embraced by the powerful and wealthy eventually, the hope doesn't reside there.  The hope doesn't even reside in obscurity and smallness, rather it resided in the reality that God entered the world as that obscure peasant, and conquered by being conquered by the powerful and moneyed of the world.  In living suffering and dieing as a human and an outcast God showed us that the halls of power and moneyed wealth are not aligned with the ultimate reality of the world. Rather, it always will lie elsewhere.   The halls of power and money will always attempt to coopt transformation and change for their benefit or create classes that benefit from a revolution more than others that is the logic of power and moneyed wealth. For more on the theology behind this go here

9/11 Civil Religion, difference, and Fear

(I in part have waited to post these thoughts because I did not want to step upon peoples genuine grief, even so what i have to say here probably remains incomprehensible and unpalatable to at least some. LEK)
It turns out this was the first of a trilogy of posts. The second in this series can be found here, in Things Gothic and priestlygoth.org, when the third post is finished it will be linked to here in Ecclesial Longings.

I live in a diverse neighborhood in Chicago, and am part the the interfaith religious association (Edgewater Community Religious Association, ECRA, though its regular participants are mostly mainline Christian congregations with a Synagogue, and an Ismaili Center who are regular participants, there are other members but I have never seen them at meetings.) in the neighborhood.  Our new alderman asked us to take part in 9/11 neighborhood commemoration he and the alderman from the neighboring ward that also covers part of Edgewater were planning.  The alderman and ECRA were in agreement that the emphasis should be as we commemorate on moving forward in coming together as a diverse community.  I was hesitant about participating in such a commemoration but with the emphasis ECRA was encouraging it seemed to be positive.   Also, we wisely chose not to give even our inter-religious imprimatur upon the proceedings by turning down the offer to give an interfaith invocation at the commemoration. We limited our involvement to saying this pledge:

"We of __________ pledge to help make Edgewater

(may want to broaden this for Pat O'Connor's Ward)

a place of justice and security for all."

"We pledge to make Edgewater a place of opportunity

and safety for everyone."

"We pledge to help make Edgewater a place where all

can worship, work and re-create in peace."

It didn't occur to me that even using this form wasn't so much about diversity as such, but a diversity conformed to a unity.  In a context that opened with the pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag (which I stood at attention for but refused to recite), our pledge of embrace (of diversity?) conformed to  a pledge of unity that obscured our particularity and difference.  In the end for all the talk of diversity even at the commemoration itself, what I was left with was the uni-vocal stamp of the Nation State that we in a civil religious ceremony bowed our selves before in hopes that our particularity would be respected.  However it was at the price, we gave up our ability to be truly other even to the Nation State and its Religious  aspirations of the American character to which we in our diversity were to pay tribute.  

In the moment I wished I had suggested we not say a pledge but make a commitment creating a space fo opportunity and safety where all can worship work and re-create in peace.  Rather, what happened is that we had to first conform to a unity and the logic of the Nation State, to truly form a unity out of our diversity that remains diverse and other.  I wished for in that moment was a unity that is not sameness, or conformity to the ideology of a Nation State even one that has the ideal in its ideology of liberty and justice for all.

I am a citizen of the United States of America, I will live at peace and obey its laws, but I do not give it my allegiance, for I bow my head and give my heart to only one sovereign, and that aint any Nation state, government or unity of Nation States.

Neither do I value difference for difference sake, but our attempts at unity in diversity, demand something I see as only being able to be given to God.  

The logic of the Nation-State attempts to create sameness out of a diversity, by telling everyone within a particular arbitrary border that they all share the same ideology and character, no matter what they feel or their diverse origins.  It is a fiction created to enforce order, which admitedly can be 

beneficial.  However, it is at the price of our ability to remain other and different.  In some sense the Nation State is built upon the fear of otherness and actual diversity.  For some reason David Bowie's I'm Affraid of Americans seems relevant here:

Do we in fact fear otherness that refuses our view and structuring of the world.  Is this perhaps not the essential logic of the Nation State and any character of a nation to fear what is not of its character and ideology and to thus produce fear of itself in others.

Corporation or Governement, or....?

My friend Jeremy over atGlassdimly tweeted this article about Tea Party rhetoric last week. The author makes the interesting observation that one could replace in most instances "Government" with "Corporations" and the rhetoric makes sense and according to the author would actually get it right and be a movement one could get behind. The assumption here though is that we need government even big government to keep corporations at bay and in check. What is assumed is that our lives simply need to be and will be dominated by large impersonal entities: Government (the State, Nation/State) or corporations. It is true that we are so dominated. In my last post here, I conclude with wondering if we could spend our energy on alternative ways of existing, living and making a living. This post wants to channel our anger, our reforms into supporting the State and pushing the State to curtail corporations. But can we turn our imaginations to both? Can we say no to both forms of impersonal distant entities that seek to tell us how to live and wish us to exist as good workers and/or good citizens. Is it true that the only possible means to curtail corporations is another Goliath? Is Leviathan the only counter to the Corporate Goliath? Follow these metaphors and perhaps we have an answer. I have little faith in either giants of our age to truly care. Sate and Corporation should have limits and they should be human ones, humans not other impersonal institutions, not merely rules and regulations and laws. This article about a small artisonal creamery that ran afoul a state regulator applying regulations intended for larger mass operations where bacteria on fresh strawberries is a real issue, should cause us pause. This is perhaps is a cautionary tale of a reliance on Government and a world dominated by Corporations: A regulator seeks to apply the law, which currently makes no distinction between size of opperation. What protects in one instance keeps something good from being produced in another. I'm also here not against all regulation, or advocating no role of Government, but questioning how we think of this, and in ways that make a necessity of the State that as our caretaker. What is the relationship between the rise of the larger corporation and large government? Why have we accepted that we need corporations to provide us with say ice cream. It seems we have come to believe that we can't survive and live without large Government and the large corporation. I think this should be challenged. Whether or not the Tea Party is so challenging certainly is questionable. However, I do find it interesting that the corporation that is behind this doesn't present itself as a larger impersonal corporation. Rather the Koch brothers are the image of this corporation. To such an extent that it is hard to believe that Koch industries is this massive operation. Cynically (most likely) the Koch corp understands something important, that people respond to the personal touch, even if it is simulated. Thus as I see it its not that the Tea Party could switch its target and get it right. but that our dependence on corporations and the State is what should be our target. A State as caretaker and defender of the poor is perhaps not in fact the sort of power we want to give to any large bureaucratic institution. By the same token depending on large corporations to bring us our food and other necessities of life and depending on them to provide our income and living is also not the wisest nor most satisfying way to live. Granted in our time and place Corporations will employ a large number of us and we will consume the products they provide, and to that extent we may need the State to step in, but simultaneously some of us should perhaps seek to live an alternative existence and as much energy as we spend pitting the State against Corporations and into regulations etc. should be put into creating these alternative local spaces of personhood and true humanity.

Wealth Poverty and the Role of Government

Over at Homebrewed Theolgoy last week there was a post on this report by the Heritage Foundation, which questions the Federal definition of poverty, because poverty should be limited to those who can't provide at all for the necessities of life for themselves and their families. Warren Buffett also wrote a piece last week calling for more taxes for himself and the wealthiest Americans. Today on NPR there was this discussion on Welfare 15 years after Clinton signed into law a major overhaul of the welfare system. And also today Harvey Golub has a rebutal to Warren Buffett's piece saying he pays plenty in taxes thank you very much.

There are a flurry of claims and counter claims here. There are statistics, some very disturbing like the amount of wealth held be smaller and smaller percentage of Americans, and yet Harvey Golub claims he still pays 80% to 90% of his income to some form of taxation.

There are I competing assumptions and presuppositions hidden in all of this.  On the one hand there are those that simply assume that it is the role of Government to provide for and take care of the poor, ie the Nation as a whole through the operations of the State. There is the assumption that money I earn is mine and most if not all of it should be at my disposal to do with it as I see fit or desire.  Taxation itself flies in the face of this, but one can of course argue that an entity like a nation and a government creates the stability necessary to be able to live and work without being robbed and ensuring agreed upon standards of business and law etc.  So one pays through taxation into this stability that allows one to earn money.  A government could care about the poor and provide for them to further ensure said stability.  By this view though there may be reason to limit aid to poor, if it is seen that this aid keeps people who should be in the workforce from entering it.  This was one reason given for the Clinton Welfare Reform.   But what about when there isn't a robust economy and there are fewer jobs than there are people who want to work?  But should everyone be in the workforce?  and might the Government have an interest in supporting people who are doing work that doesn't earn them the money they need to live on?  But why should those who are working and/or in positions to earn vasts amounts of wealth through taxes and the State support those whose life work does not earn them a living? Or more to the point should this form of support come from other segments of society than the State?

Unfortunately our discussion on these issues tends to either be Statist (or State collectivist in some fashion) or individualist and opportunist.  Also, these discussion divide the world up between Employers (the wealthy) and the employed (everybody else).  We seem to  be unable to conceive making a living that doesn't involve either making money off other people or receiving a paycheck from those who are making money through being employed.  Granted that is what we are dealing with largely, but few in my experience find this situation ultimately fulfilling.

This is rambling, because I'm attempting to get at something that is obscured.  There is a tendency among Christians both liberal and conservative when talking to the Middle Classes in comparison to the rest of the world that they are incredibly wealthy (granted liberals and conservatives say this to elicit differing responses, for liberals it is to drum up support for the State taking care of the poor, and for conservatives it is to drum up donations to help alleviate poverty).   But (and this was my own reaction to the Heritage Foundation report) when someone suggests that maybe most poor in this country are in comparison to those who can't provide for the necessities of life quite well off, it is offensive.  Eugene Cho today is talking about downward mobility and simplicity. He has a point, but if he can ask and continually ask what is needed to live in our context as a pastor and someone of the Middle Class (?), why is it wrong to ask about at what point should the government step in and provide aid to people?

And yet I can't help but think that when you ask "Well if their poor, why to they or their children have X." this is asked from a place of privilege and out of  a resentment based upon an assumption that the poor are poor because its their own fault.  People are wealthy not on the backs of others but because of their hard work.  But what if this isn't either or.  What if both are actually true?  And what if hard work isn't always rewarded and what if welfare does at times reward irresponsibility?

I also wonder if as much effort and energy went into attempting to reform the current system and funnel peoples greed into altruistic paths through the bureaucracy of the State went into people seeking to create alternative ways of being and living if we'd find that we don't need solutions to poverty just alternative ways of living.

Or to put it another way: I'm not convinced any longer that biblical and eccelsial teaching on care for the poor  is about getting any particular state to so care for the poor.  Rather it is the people of God, those gathered out of the nations who are to be a light to the nations, showing forth an alternative to the ways of the world and the realms humans continually create in their own image.  Just a thought as we rightly wrestle with wealth, poverty and the role of government.