Living in coronavirusworld 191: God was already there

 

10/17

please....

Volunteer day in the park

Cleaning the park

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. 

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"

After recounting her struggles with English, Maribel encourages us all to lesrn another language. And there are virtual abrazos fuertes all around. 

10/18

Russ is leading the West Park worship the morning.  Sharing Jackson Browne’s Rebel Jesus. (

                                                         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.

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. 

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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The arrest and trial of Jesus, Part 2: Some thoughts on Guatemala

Sunday’s  New York Times reported Rios Montt of Guatemala finally going on trial for genocide. While specifically charged with the deaths of some 1700 Ixill people, some 200,000 mainly indigenous people were killed during the ’80’s under Montt. Another 45,000 missing. Nearly all indigenous people.

I remember meeting Montt, el viejo they called him. His kindly grandfatherly demeanor, his born again piety. And I remember meeting with missionaries, the radio turned loud to foil listening devices. Meeting terrorized Mayans, stories of whole villages disappearing.

And a visit to El Verbo, the church Montt was associated with. Behind barbed wire fences. Barking German shepherds. Their representative in a black leather jacket, sunglasses. You must remember, he said, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world...(Ephesians 6:12). And then we understood. The murdered poor were not even human but demon possessed legions of darkness.

We understood that whereas in most of Central America, the struggle was class-based, Guatemala had a particularly race based reality. The Reagan administration knew of the genocide and denied it. 

We took this truth to our Presbyterian General Assembly in 1983 in Atlanta as part of our comprehensive Central America policy report. And in a late night session, conservatives produced missionaries who allied their work to the Ladino population to testify to Montt’s evangelical faith, to amend our report to pray for him, to prevent an even worse loss of life. That he needed our support. I was enraged. We couldn’t get to a mic. Our missionary friends who worked with los indigenos were prevented from speaking. The amendment passed.

Later , over a late night meal, one of the conservative evangelical leaders kept questioning me. Finally he said why can’t you support our brother in Christ? I rose, drew back my fist. A friend pulled me back. I walked away.

From a  distance I heard, What’s wrong with him? And a friend replied, maybe he’s just seen too many decapitated bodies.  

Thirty years later, vindication. But there is no joy in that. even if an apology from Montt’s North American Christian supporters would be forthcoming. Especially to the people of Guatemala. Which will not happen. 

The point is, the trial of Jesus, the humiliation, the torture, has never ended. It just goes on....

Outside, wet snow is falling. Soli asks me how long its been going on. Dos horas y media, mas o menos, I reply.  John walks Hope to a cab. Cara walks me to the corner...