Will Be Heard: the voices of mass incarceration

11/11

Mass incarceration panel

“Will be Heard: a performance and public conversation around mass incarceration in the United States” is the latest project of The Open Program of the Workcenterof Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards of Pontedara, Italy developed as part of this fall’s New York City residency. The performance piece emerged from extended conversations with formerly incarcerated people and a wide circle of community andadvicacy groups that relate to this issue.

Performing "Will Be Heard"

More than anything, “Will Be Heard” articulates and amplifies the voices of the people who shared their stories. The stories and commentary are interwoven, in a typical Open Center style, with work songs, spirituals and laments from the African Diaspora tradition. And in this performance piece, that is especially appropriate. What comes through beyond the pain and suffering inflicted on those in the corrections system is the reality of a “prison-industrial complex” through which prisoners lives are commodified. They are used to create commodities and become commodities themselves. In essence, the 13th Amendment allowed for the continuation of salvery by virtue of this clause which abolished slavery: "….except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…."

The performance was followed by a wide and diverse panel of community persons involved with mass  incarceration from clergy to former Black Panthers to activists  calling for the closing of Riders Island. 

Among the points to emerge from the conversation were these:

• There is a direct connection between gentrification, police violence and mass incarceration
• When we buy products that come from the prison labor system, we are participating in “complicit consumption”
• The system runs on a plea bargain default whereby 90% of those incarcerated never had the opportunity for a  trial (Walter Puryear, Mid Bronx Senior Citizen Council and Andrew Freedman Home)
• Solitary confinement must be understood to be the essence of illegal “cruel and unusual punishment” (Wesley Caines, Bronx Defenders)
• Solitary confinement has been especially used against the 65 “Political prisoners” in the US, i.e., those who have been placed in solitary because of their “dangerous ideas” (BJ , Black Panther Commemoration Committee and Incarcerated Nation)
• There are very special effects of incarceration on young women and re-entry presents a real challenge as prison has been internalized. TabaithaRodriguez, (G.I.R.L.S. Achieving Incorprotion)
• Actors need to remember that they are human beings first and must always honor community (Dilson Hernandez, Urban Art Beat)
• The Stella Adler School of Acting has Rikers as one of its studios and its participants are students whose address is Rikers. We will not say “living” at Rikers.  Engaging in the experience of drama and theatre becomes transformative. (Joanne Edelman, Tom Oppenhgeim, Stella Adler School)
• The American Friends Service Committee, which has been involved in working with incarcerated persons for over 100 years, Wesleyan  University and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music have been working together on a “Hope Lives for Lifers” project.  A performance using the experience of incarceration and Dante’s Inferno is being prepared for December
• Most prisoners at Rikers, mainly black and brown, have never been convicted of a crime and are there primarily because of lack of bail money and/or  adequate legal representation. 
• Pastor (Rev.Dr.)Patricia Sealy’s Mott Haven Reformed Church was a stop on the Underground Railroad helping escaped slaves to freedom.

  

  Myrto, Robert, Mario and Pastor Sealy

  She reports:
• 2.7 million children with at least one parent in prison
• 43% have seen there parent(s) treated violently by th eploice
• 1/9 African American children have a incarcerated parent as opposed to 1/28 Hispanics and 1/59 whites
• In Kenya, the standard greeting is “Are the children well?“ To which our answer must be “no”
• We ‘ve now entered into intergenerational incarceration, a difficult pattern to break

More conversation and a dinner followed. 

While the Open Program has always had a commitment to justice and civic engagement, this is the most explicit engagement of an issue they have done in their New York City residencies. This exploration of the intersection of  beauty and justice and ethics and esthetics is an example of exactly what the Center at West Park has as its vision. It I stood to see new Executive and Artistic Director Zachary Tomlinson keeping that vision alive and continuing collaboration with artists like the Ope Center.

Make a Joyful Noise

10/9/16

It was time to try something different. Whenever we have had the Open Choir as part of our service we would try and integrate their musical style with our service. But this time it was time to let the whole service roll with their energy and rhythm, truly reflect the way of work. Give it a chance to breathe. 

Larger crowd than normal. Several here just to see/hear the Grotowski folks. I used this line from Psalm 66 to frame the whole service:“Make a Joyful Noise to God, all the Earth”
We began as usual with our song by Bishop Tutu:“Goodness is Stronger than Evil” :

Goodness is stronger than evil;
love is stronger than hate;
light is stronger than darkness;
life is stronger than death.
Victory is ours, victory is ours
through him who loved us.
Victory is ours, victory is ours
through him who loved us.We do the Psalm together as an OPENING PROCLAMATION:

Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth;
sing the glory of his name;
give to him glorious praise.
Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!
Because of your great power, your enemies cringe before you.
All the earth worships you;
they sing praises to you,
sing praises to your name.”Selah
Come and see what God has done:
he is awesome in his deeds among mortals.

He turned the sea into dry land;
they passed through the river on foot.
There we rejoiced in him,
who rules by his might forever,
whose eyes keep watch on the nations—

let the rebellious not exalt themselves.Selah
Bless our God, O peoples,
let the sound of his praise be heard,
who has kept us among the living,
and has not let our feet slip.
For you, O God, have tested us;
you have tried us as silver is tried.
You brought us into the net;
you laid burdens on our backs;
you let people ride over our heads;
we went through fire and through water;
yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.[a]
Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth!
And then it was time for the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards
Felecita

Felicita begins

sang her usual opening song"Ho Everyone who Thirsts” from Isiah 55 and then Aga brought the action of a woman in the crowd, with text from Thomas’ Gospel “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast that fed you.” And then Graziele performed one of their standards from the African American tradtition: “Child of God”

After reading from Thomas’ Gospel “Woe to the Pharisees and the scribes, ” Jorge brought a song from his Andean culture, "El Niñito de Maria" followed by Feli’s soulful "Madre Agua”.

We read together from the prophet Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7 about “seeking the welfare of the city where you are” and then Eduardo’s “City of Refuge” naturally followed.

My friend Daniel shared "Ada al Kaun" and the text from Schrawardi, “The story of the Western Exile" and another song "La Ilaha Illa la”. Russ recognized then as coming for the Sufi tradition and this was probably the first time the words Allah u akbar have bene chanted at West Park.

Then another text from Thomas’ Gospel:

“Recognize that which is in your sight” and Jeremy led us into the African-American “Can't Nobody Hide" followed by Carol’s  “I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray”

Carol sings

and Grazier’s “Look How They Done My Lord” (not a mumblin’ word)

Aga returned with the action of a woman in the silence with text from Thomas’ Gospel “Whomever drinks from my mouth will become as I am and the hidden things will be revealed to him.”

Action with text from Thomas’ Gospeland Felicia followed with “He’s All” (Felicita)

Jorge embodied an old man with Nativity texts we returned to Spanish with Ururu Usurer by Jorge and Reina de los Jardines by Felicita.

Jeremy brought to life his Russian Jewish grandfather and "Hold to His Hand" and Aga took off with text from Thomas’ Gospel “The kingdom of the sky is like a mustard seed” with a brilliant riff on the birds who made nests in the bush that grew from the mustard seed.

Aga "bird speaks"

And finally, Mario’s Here am I, send me. 

John R, Rachel, Mario and Billy

                                                                ****

Reading this, you don’t hear/see/feel the music, the words. What was also different this time is that the Workcenter has worked primarily in the tradition of African American Southern (pre) Gospel must and movement. This time, different participants went into their own traditions to find songs that find what my friend Katherine used to call the same channel but from different anguages and cultures, Chrisitan, Muslim, Jewish, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew…

I am still intrigued and somewhat puzzled at the whole process. Each performer, and they are performers, creates a character for whom this music is vital. They become that character as they perform the song.

Where is the line between this and worship? What does the performer experience emotionally and spirituality? When  is a line crossed between presenting/putting on and actually being?

Even more so, I’m intrigued by the collection of young people who come from all over the world to go to Pontedara, Italy and immerse themselves in this practice. Much like the Dzieci company (the church of Dzieci) and even the Bread and Puppet Company in Vermont.

I intuitively understand that tall these are connected to that experience we call church, but not sure I can fully articulate that or draw the connection together. In the emerging world we live in, there is something vitally rich and important happening here.

For more, listen to my friend Russ’ podcast interview with Mario :

http://loveinadangeroustime.net/spirit-and-dance-music-art-the-powerful-work-of-the-open-choir-with-mario-biagini/

Sixth Sunday of Easter: Do you want to be well?

5/1/16

Welcome back Seed  Group and Open Choir

Today our friends from the Seed group/open Choir have joined us again. They open our service with  songs from the southern African-American tradition; call and response, moving in circles. I wonder about the skein from this music to the full out high decibel rock in the Pentecostal service next door.

beginning

Our topic for reflection today is Do you want to be well?

I was in Louisville last week.  Another meeting of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board, the national board of directors of the Church, so to speak. It was another trying and sad experience. Another wave of budget cuts in the wake of ever declining dollars. The loss of more staff, good friends, faithful servants.

                   

In the midst of the depressing meeting, I need a break. So I went to Stevie Ray’s Blues Bar. Their Tuesday night open blues jam. There I found a community of people who had been playing together for decades. And they welcomed me a stranger from New York. They were supportive, encouraging. I heard stories of how they had been there for each other. I often find in the music community what it is the church is supposed to be. It’s what our brother Dion offers as the host of our Friday night Open Mics.

Russ reminds us that we should  have the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the  other. And the first thing that jumps out at me from the  newspaper is income inequity. What commentators call the velvet rope economy.

 The Time article. has this to say:

With disparities in wealth greater than at any time since the Gilded Age, the gap is widening between the highly affluent — who find themselves behind the velvet ropes of today’s economy — and everyone else.

It represents a degree of economic and social stratification unseen in America since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, J. P. Morgan and the rigidly separated classes on the Titanic a century ago.

When top-dollar travelers switch planes in Atlanta, New York and other cities, Delta ferries them between terminals in a Porsche, what the airline calls a “surprise-and-delight service.” Last month, Walt Disney World began offering after-hours access to visitors who want to avoid the crowds. In other words, you basically get the Magic Kingdom to yourself.

When Royal Caribbean ships call at Labadee, the cruise line’s private resort in Haiti, elite guests get their own special beach club away from fellow travelers — an enclave within an enclave.

“We are living much more cloistered lives in terms of class,” said Thomas Sander, who directs a project on civic engagement at the Kennedy School at Harvard. “We are doing a much worse job of living out the egalitarian dream that has been our hallmark.”

Emmanuel Saez, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates that the top 1 percent of American households now controls 42 percent of the nation’s wealth, up from less than 30 percent two decades ago. The top 0.1 percent accounts for 22 percent, nearly double the 1995 proportion.

But even as income inequality and the wealth gap stoke the discontent that has emerged as a powerful force in this year’s presidential election, for American business it represents something else entirely. From cruise ship operators and casinos to amusement parks and airlines, the rise of the 1 percent spells opportunity and profit.

So in our other hand is the Bible. And today’s passage is John 5: 1-9:

¹After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

²Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes.³In these lay many invalids-blind, lame, and paralyzed. 4, 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" ⁷The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." ⁸Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." ⁹At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

That is the question:  Do you want to be well?

In this story, a man has been paralyzed for 38 years .(I can’t help but think of my mom, working her way through rehabilitation after a stroke…going from full freedom and movement one day to dependency on others the next..)The man describes the local health care system….a pool ….an angel troubles the waters…then the first one in gets healed…for 38 years he’s been pushed aside…the system doesn’t work…

So what does Jesus do? Does he helps him get to the water first? NO. He tells him to get up and walk…he avoids the stacked system altogether….moves outside the lines and creates a new reality.

That’s the Jesus question: Do you want to be well?

In addition to the bad news in Louisville, I also heard exciting stories from churches…moving outside the lines…

Like Madrona Grace church in Seattle…building their tiny houses….131 square feet…loft, kitchen, living space….first built for their  shelter volunteers, they realized, why not for homeless people? So tiny houses are soon to build for homeless people. At a cost of $12 to $20000 a house. The Wood Technology Center of Seattle Central College is providing all the labor, building the homes to specifications provided by the church. 

Tonight is our night to serve a meal at the shelter at SPSA. I hear more and more churches starting open table meals like Jan Hus…or Broadway Presbyterian …where all are welcome and break bread together…where all are served, volunteers and guest alike.  A new way to be church. Or perhaps a very old way. Metaphoric and existential simultaneously.

That is the question: Do you want to be well?

Our Washington DC ministry staff person J. Herbert Nelson had this to say in response to what was happening in  Louisville: Assumed attrition is not a vision…and certainly not a stragtegy…

The Presbyterian Outlook has important questions for us to answer:

1.     How do we address the problems inherent in our economic system while continuing to participate in them?

2.     What are some effective ways of challenging unhelpful myths about our economic system?

3.     How can faith communities play a prophetic role and help build a society that can make people whole? 

(You can see more at: http://www.onscripture.com/seeking-wholeness-inherently-flawed-system#sthash.Mp1l5MYP.dpuf)

Do you want to be well?  Sharon Welch reminds us that the dominant ethic of our culture is that of  control. For good or bad intentions, either way, control is inherently violent to the spirit. What she calls for is an ethic of risk, that is where life is….that is where we can be well…where we can heal and be well again..

God grant is the courage to risk…

After we pray, we share bread and cup together, our own symbolic open table. Open choir and members, all together. Our friends sing again. And I close with these words from Revelation 21:10, 22:1-5

¹⁰And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

¹Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ²through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.³Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; ⁴they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

John, Rachel and Mario

Last Sunday with the Work center and Open Choir: Of Kingdoms and Kindoms

11/22

Work Center and Open Choir

^{Today is the last day of the residency of our Work Center friends at West-Park.  And today they will be joining us in worship once more. They are joining us for the Sunday that has traditionally been the last Sunday of the church year, Christ the King Sunday, or Reign of Christ Sunday. As well as the Sunday before Thanksgiving.}

^{Before the service, Felicita stops by to see me. She had not been able to be part of our shared vision conversation. She’s aware that changes are taking place at West-Park. That the building  is greatly improved. And improving. And that financial needs are great. One thing you must never lose, she says, this can never just become a rental space.  You cannot lose the spirit that has been here. This place is holy. Every time before we perform here, we sweep and mop the floors. We clean the pews, the cushions. It connects us with the space, like our home. It upsets me when I see people who just rent. Who come in, use, pay their money and leave. I can’t imagine this in a church in Italy. (I say something about government support…) She says, No, that is not what I mean. I am an ex-Catholic, I don’t know what I believe but I know the holiness of this space. What if all your renters, long term I mean, would take turns cleaning different spaces? Would that change how they feel? What if you gathered for a once a month meal, after working together? Is that too crazy? To care for the house you live in together and to share together. Like a community?  OK, those are my thoughts…}

^{Mario knows that I am opening the service with these words from Revelation:}

4bGrace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, ⁵and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, ⁶and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

⁷Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen.

⁸"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

And has chosen their songs accordingly, songs from the American South, African-American work songs,field songs, call and response, spiritual, early gospel.  Weaving their bodies in a circling motion as they sing. 

The singing begins

When its my turn, I ask everyone to sing Come Ye Thankful People Come, and We Gather Together, traditional American Thanksgiving songs.

Then we reads the gospel, JOHN 18:33-37 and shared this reflection:

^{Do you know what a Caliphate is?  The group we know as ISIS calls the territory they already control the caliphate, a geographic territory.  Under their control in which Islamic law in its most extreme form. There are maps on the internet that show a territory that runs from Spain  and Portugal all the way across the Balkans, North Africa, the Middle East and into China. All the territory the Muslims once controlled reunited.  After that the Mahdi will arrive and the Messianic age will be ushered in with Jesus’ help.  That is the dream. Bear with me. This is not another anti-Muslim}   rant.

Next we get Greater Israel…all the land promised to Israel by God. The first, found in Genesis 15:18–21, seems to define the land that was given to all of the children of Abraham, including Ishmael, Zimran, Jokshan, Midian, etc. It describes a large territory, from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates, comprising all of modern-day Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon,Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, as well as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, Oman, Yemen, most of Turkey, and all the land east of the Nile river. Seems crazy. Obviously in direct conflict with the ISIS vision. But…for now, all of mandate Palestine seems to enough of a first step.

We’ll take a brief detour for the crusaders’ campaign to recapture all the territory that had once been Christian. They actually did create the empire of Jerusalem ruling over 350,000 Jews, Muslims and Eastern Christians…

And how can we forget the Holy Roman Empire? That lasted almost 1000 years and ran from the Baltic and North Seas to the Mediterranean? Prague, Rome, Budapest? The last remaining gasps of the original Roman Empire now under the sign of the cross? The emperor elected but needing the sign off of the pope to be official.

Or the Treaty of Tordesillas where the pope divided up the world between Portugal and Spain? The Spanish arriving with la cruz y la espada…the cross and the sword….it’s not a far leap from that Philippians passage….. ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, ¹¹ and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

And before I stop, let’s throw in the plan supported by US and Australian fundamentalist Christians  to blow up the dome of the rock in Jerusalem so that the Third Temple can be built.

Empires. Kingdoms.  How can we even talk about Christ the King in 2015? Years ago, I wanted to explore this from a feminist perspective which is how Katherine Kurs came here to work with us for 10 years. Now it’s the kingdom part that worries me.

Those who have been in our Bible Study know that Wes Howard-Brook in his Come Out my People….says that there are two religions in the Bible…not Judaism and Christianity but that of Creation and Covenant and that of Empire. They are in constant tension from beginning Genesis to Revelation’s end.

And that’s the conflict we look at today in the storyof Jesus’ conversation with Pilot. The emperor asks of Jesus,  "Are you the King of the Jews?" ³⁴Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" ³⁵Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?"³⁶Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." ³⁷Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

Bottom line…Jesus says his kingdom  is not of this world…if it were armed rebels would be in the house…

So what does he mean? More and more, I’m thinking he’s asking us not to sign up for rebel armies..but to create communities of resistance….what does that mean? Like the African- American communities that created the music our friends sing, communities of liberated space where the kingdom, no kindom, already exists. A community in, but not of the world…

What would that look like? Feel like? I’m not completely sure but I know that anyone walking in would immediately feel so that’s what this place is… How would we build that? Create that? It would begin by believing it was possible and by beginning to act as if it already existed..

So how then would we relate to the kingdom of this world, this empire? I’m not exactly sure…..to black lives  matter and refugees and migrants and income inequality?

Still working on that…I suppose if we got the first part going, the second part would follow…and I know this…it means not allowing any other power or authority to command our ultimate  allegiance.. it’s a way of life, not assent to a theological proposition…knowing you don’t get to the empty cross of resurrection without the embodied cross of the crucifixion.. it is ultimately that act of solidarity that welcomes in  new reality, it is humility, not triumph…

AMEN

The Work Center Open Choir leads us in more songs, singing, weaving, …

and as I watch Jenna, I understand that at it’s highest level, several of the choir members are creating and embodying characters, that character allowing for a deeper level of experience than even the singing and dancing. Having them with us again has been as always a moving experience. In more ways than one.

Felicita, Bob, Mario, Jeremy and Myrto

We stand together in a circle. Make our blessings and sing Amen. Until the next time….

Mario, Rachel and John