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| Blvd Bistro, Harlem |
Our International Sanctuary group gathers from New York, Tucson, Cleveland. Toronto, Berlin…we’ve been meeting on ZOOM for at last 5 years, long before it became everybody’s second home. We’re here to hear how Covid19 is affecting the refugees and immigrants we work with. We learn:
* Both US borders are completely shut down
* People caught in on US side are returned within the hour
* Shelters on the Mexico side are full and new returnees have no place to go
* No Mas Muertos and the Samaritans are encountering more and more people in the most deadly part of the Sonora desert as legal crossings shut down
* Detention Centers are filled to capacity with no possibility of social distancing or sanitation
* The ACLU has undertaken release cases for the most vulnerable, eg pregnant women, etc.
* In Upstate New York, Project Faro is trying to advocate for immigrants who have made it to this part of the state. A car protest was organized in Albany with circling cars and beeping horns
* The director of Stony Points struggling to figure out how to deal with 50 staff and 20 volunteers and no income while still seeking to respond to issues like the nearby Orange City detention center.
* Canada has essentially sealed itself off. Refugees crossing has slowed to a trickle. The closed border has ben extended until the end of may. There I san effort to find people who have areal claim tomato regardognpolitical asylum. And a real desire to open the US-Canada border again.
* The Mediterranean becomes ever more dangerous. Over Easter, one boat with over 150 refugees was denied entry to any port for over two weeks. It was finally transferred to the Red Cross
* Malta continues to turn boats away. One recent case resulted in 8 dead and 5 missing from a turned way boat.
* On the other hand, Greece has reopened for asylum seekers
* Even so, hundreds of asylum seekers are trapped on the isle of Lesbos
* The military is securing the seaports in Sicily and isolating camps and detention centers
* In Germany, detainees with little food and no transportation out of their centers have begun a hunger strike
* Where detainees have no sanitation and little water people are begining to organize themselves
* In Ohio, in Cleveland and Toledo, there’s a real slow down in people seeking to cross over US’s “north coast” to Canada. Over 20% of all Covid cases in Ohio are in the penal system and a “Free Them All” effort has begun
There is a great sense of frustration in NewYork State. On the one hand, our Governor Cuomo has risen to the occasion and become the kind of focused organized and compassionate leader we lack at the national level, with dignity and directness defending himself against the virulent tweets of the President. On the other, he has done nothing to address the issue of people in the prison system who should be released especially the elderly, let alone the states detention centers .How to effectvley pressure him for change remains an issue.
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When I hear people compare the protestors demanding a reopening to Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks, I want to scream. First of all, Rosa Parks was protesting a national history of systemic injustice and inequality. This lockdown is little more than a month and is anything but systemic. More importantly, it is not about “liberty.” Your right to “freedom of assembly” does not -and cannot - extend to the rich to potentially infect me or my loved ones with a potentially fatal virus. This kind of bravado is as arrogant as it is ignorant, not to mention dangerous. Doubly offensive when you consider the impact of this virus on people of color, comparatively speaking. Liberate Michigan, liberate Minnesota, liberate Virgina…
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Tonight’s West-Park Bible Study, with a pause for the 7 PM “clap” of course, is on John 20: 19-31, otherwise known as the Doubting Thomas story. Even though the disciples had heard Mary’s testimony, they were afraid,. It’s important to note that when John say “Jews, ” he means “authorities.” The disciples too, after all, were Jews. We’re in the time of the late 2nd century, Christians are beginning to be expelled from synagogues as their testimony begins to sound more and more cult-like and out of line, theologically. Many Christians want to remain with the synagogue (12:42-43) and even some surreptitiously, like Joseph of Arimathea, 19:31, who gives Jesus a burial place. That bitter hostility underlies this gospel.
Jesus appears and greets them with Peace, recalling 14:27 where he said, Peace I leave with you…don’t let your hearts be trouble , neither let them be afraid…words we need to hear again right now. Even though he had been resurrected and can apparently pass through walls, the marks of his crucifixion are still clear. One would have thought a resurrected body would be perfect. But the point is this…it was Jesus’ crucifixion that is the center of his identity, , not the resurrection. Jesus’ crucifixion broke once and for all the power of death to intimidate.
He is sending them, even as he was sent. Then he breathes on them, this becomes John’s version of Pentecost with the visitation of the Holy Sprit. (Not so good in Coronasvirusworld) Recalling Genesis 2:7 where God breathes into the nostrils of the Adam God has created.
We talk about this power to “forgive and retain sins.” What’s clear is that not forgiving continues to bind both parties. To the one who has been hurt, it’s away of holding on. To what was or could have been. Forgiveness is required to move on.
And now Thomas. And Jesus passing through walls again. Thomas was the one who’d said, “Let us go , that we may die with him”(11:16) and also ‘Lord, we do no know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (14:5) which opens the door for Jesus to say “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except by me.” As Marsha says, Thomas is wise and resolute. A much better guy to build your community around than Peter with his complete lack of impulse control. Thomas’s need to see for himself is on behalf of all of us, he is our stand in. And again, it is the marks, the signs, that covince him.
When the passage speaks of “,…and other signs…” (30-31), the book probably ended here. Whatever they were would make a most interesting book. This book was most likely written to strengthen the faith of an existing community in hard times. The word “Come to believe (31) can just as easily be translated “continue to believe.”
Even before the Coronavirus, we were experiencing a growing alienation from the greater institutional church body. A growing gap between large and small , rich and poor. Likewise a growing sense alienation from our own country’s political institutions. In Coronavirustime, our sense of exile, fear and doubt only increase. At this tine, the presence of a Jesus who still bear the marks of his crucifixion who can say to us “do not fear” is a comforting, a strengthening presence. John’s gospel exists to strengthen the body. Anything we can do to strengthen the body is a form of protest against what has come to be accepted
Marsha reports that Manhattan Together, the Community Organizing group, has started a fund to support restaurant workers.
It has been good to be together.
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As is typical these days, About half the songs offered in my songwriters workshop, or more, deal wit the virus. I always feel somewhat intimidated by people who have given their whole lives to music. Given their all to try make it as musicians. As a writer, I have not done that. I sometimes feel like an interloper. But they like what I’ve done with “I don’t roll that way.” And have some more helpful suggestions.
“ I feel like it’s late and getting darker everyday.”
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