10/17
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| Volunteer day in the park |
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| Cleaning the park |
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| coronavirusworld |
It’s Volunteer Day in Morningside Park. Teams of volunteers clearing leaves, raking, sweeping, cleaning trimming….neighbors caring for our common back yard…..the weekly Farmers’ Market with its mandatory masks. Fall produce. Craft whiskeys from Yonkers. Fresh meats from the farms, including a special Bolognese sauce. Artists, including one artist’s impression of coronavirusworld….I wish there was more fall leaf color.
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| Remembering Chile |
W gather on ZOOM from around the world to honor my friend Dennis Smith and his wife Maribel on Dennis’ retirement after 40 years of mission service for the Presbyterian Church. I first met Dennis in 1982 in Guatemala City. I recall sitting in a hotel room with music on the radio turned way up to cover our conversation from the suspected “bugs” in our room. It was in the midst of the genocidal reign of Efrain Rios Montt, icon of Reagan and American evangelicals. It’s moving to see another colleague from that first visit in the room as well as two from my most recent visits. Years later, Dennis would bring a group of Waldensians from Argentina and Uruguay to West Park to explore urban ministry and this set the stage for my two years of consultant work in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. It’s good to see my friends Carola and Dario form Rio Plate in their ZOOM box and remember Dario’s magnificent backyard barbecue. And I remember how it was just one year ago that I was privileged to be in Chile during its estallido (explosion). Tear gassed five times. Profoundly moved by the power of the people to raise their own voice and the power of creativity, especially of music, and Victor Jara, to inspire and sustain resistance and struggle. In remembrance. I drink form my mug commemorating the 55th anniversary of the founding of Comundad Teolgia Evangelica de Chile celebrated in the midst of the social upheaval. The much anticipated vote to authorize the drafting of a new constitution, schedule for April, has been put off until later hits month. With many questions unresolved. We watch Chile so closely because their Pinochet constitution is the model of what the radical libertarians behind Trump want for this country. Dennis laughs and lets me know the jean jacket I left in a movie theatre in Buenos Aires was found by Maribel and is now with him in Oregon.
In reflecting on their years, Maribel speaks of the infrastructural changes that have taken place. Dennis speaks of the persistence of violence over the decades. Even following “peace.” People are still, and perhaps even more subject to the experience of violence. The society (like ours) is highly polarized and there is a profound danger of the reality becoming ever more detribalized. The challenge on confronting the basic fundamental issues has become even more difficult. When Dennis began his work, missionaries saw themselves as God bearers, bringing God to the unsaved. Now we know God was already there. Now mission work is to listen to learn. To share. Our salvation is abound up in learning from others how God is at work in their lives.To know we are not to be leaders but to walk alongside. And to be a bridge between peoples. There is a beautiful song by David LaMotte.
"We are each others' angels"
10/18
Russ is leading the West Park worship the morning. Sharing Jackson Browne’s Rebel Jesus. (
And reflection on Matthew 22: 15-22. And how in the “Give to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s, in the end it is all God’s." During the conversation, Hugo states that now Nicaragua is 9th in the world in proportionate covid fatalities with 6000 dead.
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| looking for a four |
The 115th street crap shooters have left a stray die on the sidewalk.
I am honored to take part in the third Peoples’ Music Network TransAtlantic Song Swap with artists from the US and Canada sharing with colleagues from the UK: England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. “Songs of Freedom and Struggle” can heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1d0ivyTTk. I shared my Black Lives Matter Song”How Long” and even got mentioned in a freestyle rap by Kurley, who sounds like a real life Ali G. Moving to hear from both sides of the Atlantic how we struggle with the pandemic and the older pandemic of intuitional racism.
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| friends |
The day ends in the patio garden of an Upper West Side Italian restaurant with two pastor friends. My Catholic priest friend has ambivalent feelings about the Barrett Supreme Court nomination. My Lutheran pastor friend has no question about where she stands. And we all are filled with anxiety about the coming election.
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