Anglican churches of the Americas and the Caribbean: responsible, accountable, in mission, in communion

News of the demise of communion and the (Anglican) Communion is, as always, exaggerated.

More than this, there is good news coming out of the recent meeting in Costa Rica of the Anglican Churches of the Americas and the Caribbean.

Caminante and Padre Mickey have both posted the text of the communique from the meeting.

The Episcopal News Service story is here.

I am sure that we owe to the participants from the Global Center much of the credit for this heartfelt, outer-directed, and harmonious gathering.

¡Demos gracias a Dios!

From El Salvador, Christmas justice and joy

Caminante has posted this Christmas message from Reverendisimo Martín Barahona of El Salvador and the Anglican Region of Central America.

Once again, our sisters and brothers of the Global Center have spoken with love, faith, clarity, and courage.

Glory to Godde, and on this fragile earth, peace.

Guadalupe

I am posting this on Sunday, though I have manipulated the date of posting back to Friday, when many of us honored the feast of La Virgen de Guadalupe. I have a large image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in my home. My friend Eduardo Fernández, a Jesuit theologian in Berkeley who is Mexican-American and from El Paso, Texas, gave it to me, and I treasure it.

Je Vais - Haiti Twoubadou

Yes, same root as the French word troubadour.

This is a music video, not live, but at least you can see the musicians.

To my ear, there are echoes of both Cuba and Louisiana in this one! So goes the gorgeous spread of music in the African Diaspora and its cultural companions.*

Enjoy.


And pray for Haitians, who have already suffered grievously from Hurricane Ike, and for their and our Cuban sisters and brothers.

May the people dance again.

* haitianmedia.com says:

Haitian Twoubadou, a silky and romantic take on Haitian Compas. Twoubadou translates as troubadour and, as that designation implies, the style is more concerned with melody, lyrics, harmonies and acoustic instruments than some of its Caribbean competitors.

Twoubadou (from troubadour) music has a long and important place in Haitian culture, one that transcends rural-urban and class divisions. The term is used to describe singer-composers who accompany themselves or are backed by small string-based ensembles. These traditionally consist of one or two guitars, a tanbou (barrel drum) played with the hands, a graj (scraper) and a manumba, a large, box-like "thumb piano" on which the player sits and plucks metal tongues suspended over a sound hole. Twoubadou is derived from blending of the Cuban son brought back to Haiti in the early twentieth century by itinerant Haitian sugarcane cutters and Haitian meringue. The form has become deeply Haitian over the intervening decades, and most Haitians consider it an indigenous music. Twoubadou songs are expected to truthfully convey the bitterness and humor of life and love, often employing ribald and off-color lyrics. Some twoubadou singers have been the conscience of a generation.

Twoubadou groups can still be heard in Haiti at patwonal (patron's day feasts), during Carnival, at private parties and in hotels and restaurants frequented by tourists. Eclipsed by konpa and other popular styles that it helped to spawn, twoubadou has been taken for granted by Haitians until a resurgence of interest that began in the late 1990s. Even so, this delightful music remains virtually unknown outside the country.

Amor Verdadero - Afro-Cuban All Stars

Helpless in the face of Hurricane Ike, which is devastating Haiti and Cuba, I post one of my favorite Cuban songs, "Amor Verdadero," by the Afro-Cuban All Stars.

The music of Cuba is one of the island's great contributions to civilization. Enjoy it! You cannot hear this music without moving. Sing in the face of stormy weather. May the people dance again!

Here it is: Amor Verdadero, live.

(Also Amor Verdadero, the recording,with no video but great sound. )

I will now hunt for some favorite Haitian music and post it shortly.

Afro-Cuban All Stars:

Luiz on "the spirituality of sweet tea"

My friend (and friend of several of our readers here) Luiz Coelho has a lovely essay on "The Spirituality of Sweet Tea" at the Episcopal Café this weekend. *Permanent link here, though the essay is still on the front page, till early tomorrow. *Sweet tea, a reality both Southern U.S. and Brazilian.* Thank you, Luiz.

I'm struck by the fact that several of us who are Café columnists have been writing about slowing down, contemplation, Sabbath, overwork, overscheduling, and related matters.* (Today's column by Luiz, and also here, here, and here and probably some others I've missed.) *We're noticing the speed and superficiality of the culture around us and its production-centered values and trying to dip into our traditions to find deeper and more thirst-quenching waters.

{...drinking chilled,* unsweetened peppermint tea, slowly... and waiting for a North Carolina thunderstorm to descend on us...}

* no ice cubes

Nicaraguan priest elected president of United Nations General Assembly

Well! Look where Miguel D'Escoto has turned up!

Story here.

Padre Mickey needs a new camera

Padre Mickey and the Lovely Mona are on vacation, well deserved in the midst of their hard work as missionaries, musicians, and general purveyors of goodwill and generosity (not to mention humo[u]r and icons and stories of the saints).

They are having a good time except for a little misadventure involving a stolen camera, and they could use some material assistance. Details from Padre Mickey, the rockin' guitar-playin' priest, are here, with a link to a secure contribution thingie, and I encourage friends and fans to donate. I'm getting paid tomorrow, May 1, and in honor of International Workers' Day and the Month of Mary (hey who says you can't celebrate both? Mickey will agree) I am going to shell out a tiny bit myself. Go 'long now. And Mickey didn't pay me to say this. Not that he could, because have you looked at Episcopal missionary salaries recently?

Visiting an old speech full of life

I am reading Pablo Neruda's Nobel Lecture. (He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 and died two years later at the age of 69.) This is a translation. If you read Spanish, you can find the original here. There is also a sound recording on the Web page. I listened to most of it because I love reading Neruda poems aloud and I had never heard his voice. I hear sadness in it.

The narrative of the first part of Neruda's speech is a lot like his poems in its descriptions of nature. It's worth listening to for a short while even if you don't know Spanish. I used to read Neruda's poems aloud even when I didn't understand all the words. The sound of them alone was beautiful. Having a bilingual edition, of course, helped me cheat and understand what I was missing.

But language never fully translates. A translation is almost an entirely different work from the original.

Go to the right hand column and you can click your way around for a biography of Neruda and other resources.

...

From all this, my friends, there arises an insight which the poet must learn through other people. There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song - but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny. ...

The poet is not a "little god". No, he is not a "little god". He is not picked out by a mystical destiny in preference to those who follow other crafts and professions. I have often maintained that the best poet is he who prepares our daily bread: the nearest baker who does not imagine himself to be a god. He does his majestic and unpretentious work of kneading the dough, consigning it to the oven, baking it in golden colours and handing us our daily bread as a duty of fellowship. And, if the poet succeeds in achieving this simple consciousness, this too will be transformed into an element in an immense activity, in a simple or complicated structure which constitutes the building of a community, the changing of the conditions which surround mankind, the handing over of mankind's products: bread, truth, wine, dreams. If the poet joins this never-completed struggle to extend to the hands of each and all his part of his undertaking, his effort and his tenderness to the daily work of all people, then the poet must take part, the poet will take part, in the sweat, in the bread, in the wine, in the whole dream of humanity. Only in this indispensable way of being ordinary people shall we give back to poetry the mighty breadth which has been pared away from it little by little in every epoch, just as we ourselves have been whittled down in every epoch. ...

As far as we in particular are concerned, we writers within the tremendously far-flung American region, we listen unceasingly to the call to fill this mighty void with beings of flesh and blood. We are conscious of our duty as fulfillers - at the same time we are faced with the unavoidable task of critical communication within a world which is empty and is not less full of injustices, punishments and sufferings because it is empty - and we feel also the responsibility for reawakening the old dreams which sleep in statues of stone in the ruined ancient monuments, in the wide-stretching silence in planetary plains, in dense primeval forests, in rivers which roar like thunder. We must fill with words the most distant places in a dumb continent and we are intoxicated by this task of making fables and giving names. This is perhaps what is decisive in my own humble case, and if so my exaggerations or my abundance or my rhetoric would not be anything other than the simplest of events within the daily work of an American. Each and every one of my verses has chosen to take its place as a tangible object, each and every one of my poems has claimed to be a useful working instrument, each and every one of my songs has endeavoured to serve as a sign in space for a meeting between paths which cross one another, or as a piece of stone or wood on which someone, some others, those who follow after, will be able to carve the new signs.

By extending to these extreme consequences the poet's duty, in truth or in error, I determined that my posture within the community and before life should be that of in a humble way taking sides. I decided this when I saw so many honourable misfortunes, lone victories, splendid defeats. In the midst of the arena of America's struggles I saw that my human task was none other than to join the extensive forces of the organized masses of the people, to join with life and soul with suffering and hope, because it is only from this great popular stream that the necessary changes can arise for the authors and for the nations. And even if my attitude gave and still gives rise to bitter or friendly objections, the truth is that I can find no other way for an author in our far-flung and cruel countries, if we want the darkness to blossom, if we are concerned that the millions of people who have learnt neither to read us nor to read at all, who still cannot write or write to us, are to feel at home in the area of dignity without which it is impossible for them to be complete human beings.

We have inherited this damaged life of peoples dragging behind them the burden of the condemnation of centuries, the most paradisaical of peoples, the purest, those who with stones and metals made marvellous towers, jewels of dazzling brilliance - peoples who were suddenly despoiled and silenced in the fearful epochs of colonialism which still linger on.

Our original guiding stars are struggle and hope. But there is no such thing as a lone struggle, no such thing as a lone hope. In every human being are combined the most distant epochs, passivity, mistakes, sufferings, the pressing urgencies of our own time, the pace of history. But what would have become of me if, for example, I had contributed in some way to the maintenance of the feudal past of the great American continent? How should I then have been able to raise my brow, illuminated by the honour which Sweden has conferred on me, if I had not been able to feel some pride in having taken part, even to a small extent, in the change which has now come over my country? It is necessary to look at the map of America, to place oneself before its splendid multiplicity, before the cosmic generosity of the wide places which surround us, in order to understand why many writers refuse to share the dishonour and plundering of the past, of all that which dark gods have taken away from the American peoples.

I chose the difficult way of divided responsibility and, rather than to repeat the worship of the individual as the sun and centre of the system, I have preferred to offer my services in all modesty to an honourable army which may from time to time commit mistakes but which moves forward unceasingly and struggles every day against the anachronism of the refractory and the impatience of the opinionated. For I believe that my duties as a poet involve friendship not only with the rose and with symmetry, with exalted love and endless longing, but also with unrelenting human occupations which I have incorporated into my poetry.

It is today exactly one hundred years since an unhappy and brilliant poet, the most awesome of all despairing souls, wrote down this prophecy: "A l'aurore, armés d'une ardente patience, nous entrerons aux splendides Villes." "In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid Cities." ...

... I wish to say to the people of good will, to the workers, to the poets, that the whole future has been expressed in this line by Rimbaud: only with a burning patience can we conquer the splendid City which will give light, justice and dignity to all [hu]mankind. ...

***************- Pablo Neruda

Neruda always wrote in green, the color (he said) of hope, esperanza.

Arcatao Stations of the Cross: The Fourteenth Station

From the walls of the church in Arcatao, El Salvador.
Photos of the Stations have been traveling as an exhibit "Stations of the Struggle" during Lent. Photographer Roland Torres, from Madison, Wisconsin, took them during a delegation visit. Madison is sister city to Arcatao.

Arcatao Stations of the Cross: The Tenth Station

Arcatao Stations of the Cross: The Third Station

From the walls of the church in Arcatao, El Salvador.

Photos of the Stations have been traveling as an exhibit "Stations of the Struggle" during Lent. Photographer Roland Torres, from Madison, Wisconsin, took them during a delegation visit. Madison is sister city to Arcatao.

Arcatao Stations of the Cross: The Second Station

From the walls of the church in Arcatao, El Salvador.

Photos of the Stations have been traveling as an exhibit "Stations of the Struggle" during Lent. Photographer Roland Torres, from Madison, Wisconsin, took them during a delegation visit. Madison is sister city to Arcatao.

Tenth Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal

What, you gave and your cat, dog, or guppy did not? Look for their secret stash of cash, and run, don't walk, to the post office or to PayPal, and send those spare pennies to the OCICBW... Community Christmas Appeal for the parish of Cristo Rei in Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil!

That's right, I just realized I had given, but Miss Maya Pavlova had not. Mea culpa. We want Total Household Giving here!

We have passed the $7000 mark and are headed toward $8000. Get those cats to cough up!

Project and payment details here.

And now for your daily reflection. Today again, Ivone Gebara, from the early 1990s interview she gave Mev Puleo. This interview is in the same book (The Struggle Is One) from which I quoted Pedro Casaldáliga and Maria Miguel.

I have the impression that most people from the rich or middle-classes feel sorry for the poor, but this sorry doesn't go very far. Ultimately, people want to save their own skin and have their place in the sun.

I'm convinced of the terribly urgent necessity for the rich and middle-class to open up to a more human dimension of their own riches, which, most times, are made from the direct or indirect exploitation of the poor. To discover the human meaning of wealth is to discover a happiness, a well-being, a meaning for that which is the fruit of human hands, that every person has a right to.

The wealth of the rich is inhuman because it rests on the death of others. So we need a movement of collective consciousness to change the rules of the economic game, the political game, the ideological game. If the rich keep guarding their own interests, then, without a doubt, they'll be the first ones responsible for the destruction of human life and all life on the face of the earth.

... I think a revolution is possible. I'm not talking about taking up arms, but the revolution of people who are beginning to build from little things, obeying the values deep within themselves that will save humanity and the earth.

*********- Ivone Gebara

Ninth Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal

EPIPHANY IS COMING!

The fund-raiser for the City of God ends on the Twelfth Day of Christmas.

This means we only have a few days left in which to give.

Dig deep, folks. Our sisters and brothers in Cidade de Deus could use some of our cash, hard-earned or easily won. It's all useful. Five dollars, five hundred dollars, seven euros, seven hundred euros, eighteen pounds sterling, eighteen hundred pounds sterling. No gift too small, no gift too large.

More dramatic appeals from cyber-friends friends here and here and here. With photos! And the occasional hard sell, complete with threat to cute puppies.

Please give! Details here.

Checks or cheques, however you prefer to spell the word. Also PayPal. Take your pick. Or do both!

And now, your theological reflection for the day.

One jargon theological word explanation: "eschatology" is the part of theology that deals with "the last things" i.e. the end of time, the goal of salvation, life beyond this life, the end of the world as we know it, the future of our lives. It is related to how Christians understand history, salvation, liberation, suffering, and the present.

Okay, now the reflection.

Ivone Gebara writes:

According to traditional eschatology, all humanity, corrupted by the fall, is in its entirely promised eternal salvation. To the universality of sin is opposed the universality of salvation, and this salvation is imposed by force or, as some Pentecostal churches do, by using radio and television to spread a simplistic and dangerous message. Salvation is offered; it is enough merely to accept it. These churches, like the global market, dominate people and encourage people to become dangerously alienated, often leading to their human damnation in concrete history. In the face of the actual manipulations of the salvation of the afterlife, I say that I prefer the known and unknown limits of this earth rather than to fly off to a heaven proposed by theologians but one whose substance I do not know. I prefer to stay enmeshed in the dust of the earth rather than to mount to a sky white and perfect. I prefer, for my last sigh and my last repose, the arms of the earth --which, according to the book of Genesis, is the place where God walks.

Beyond what is imagined by reason, there is something imagined by desire, poetry, beauty. This concept of the imagination bets on life without mathematical certitude; it bets simply because life is worth being loved and lived to the full. It is so little, but it is so beautiful! It is beautiful in its fragility, and everything beautiful has something fragile in it and something ephemeral. This eschatology commingled with earth --the cycle of life, the year's season, the bodies of animals, plants, and flowers-- this human and larger-than-human eschatology warms the heart a great deal. It matters in the being and thought of many women; it mobilizes their art, their politics, their philosophy, their cuisine, their tenderness, their history, and their theology.

I daresay that we women, while having respect for the "kingdom" of God, which epitomizes the ministry of Jesus, do not proclaim any kingdom, because even the notion of the kingdom of God seems to have a face too male and authoritative. We proclaim quite simply the deep desire and the urgent necessity of having our individual and collective body more widely respected. We dream of a tender justice; we yearn for democracy and respect for the res publica. Our theology is one of gratuitousness, one that goes beyond rationalist discourse, bypasses it, does not enter the prison of rigid concepts. We believe in the dimension of "not-knowing," a fundamental dimension of our being, a not-knowing that makes us more humble and at the same time more combative in order to gain respect for differences and the possibility of building an interdependent society. We look for a Wisdom in life, a Wisdom that teaches us to share our goods and the goods of the earth, so as not to have any "needy person" among us (Acts 4:34).

Beginning from this vision, which forms part of our daily life and of our body, we may recover an ethical, fundamental dimension for the life of every being. This is a matter of living an ethic that forms part of the core of the human being, of our body of our possibilities for tenderness and solidarity, of our questions of every day. This new vision, including both male and female, can be one contribution of feminist theology of Latin America to our Western theological tradition.

*****- Ivone Gebara, Out of the Depths: Women's Experience of Evil and Salvation (2002; original edition 1999, in French)

Ivone Gebara, a Brazilian Sister of Notre Dame, is one of Latin America's leading theologians. She holds doctorates in both philosophy and theology and taught for many years at the (now defunct) Theology Institute of Recife, where Dom Helder Camara was archbishop. She is the author of many books and articles including Mary: Mother of God, Mother of the Poor (1989, written with Maria Clara Bingemer) and Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation (1999). She ran into trouble with the Vatican for having favored the legalization of abortion in Brazil. From living in a poor neighborhood and daily contact with poor women, she knew the circumstances that drove women --many of them already devoted mothers-- to seek illegal abortions and the way in which these often resulted in maternal deaths. Legalization, writes Gebara's translator (for the book quoted above) Ann Patrick Ware, "was only one small aspect of a broader struggle in what she called 'an abortive society,' that is, a society that does not offer jobs, health care, housing, or education to poor women.

For a handy summary of the three phases of Latin American feminist theology according to Elsa Tamez (Costa Rica and Mexico) and Ivone Gebara (Brazil) --the summary is by Judy Ress (U.S. and Chile)-- see here.

How did Ivone Gebara, who lived for many years in a poor neighborhood of Recife, in Northeast Brazil, become involved in feminist theology? According to an article in U.S. Catholic (January 2003), Gebara said:

Let me tell you about a key event for me. I was leading a Bible study for a group of about a dozen workers in Recife, where I live. I was the only woman in the group.

The wife of the worker at whose home the meetings took place never joined the discussions. I kept asking her to join us, but she wouldn't. I felt really uncomfortable about that, so I decided to visit her one day. I asked her, "Why don't you want to study the gospel with us?"

She said, "You really want to know?"

I said, "Of course!"

And she said, "Because I do not understand what you are saying. You have a male language."

I said, "Me?" I was so upset! "No, I don't have a male language."

She said I did. I asked her for an example. So she said, "When you read the gospel, you always take examples from the life of industrial workers in the union. You analyze political issues. You talk about how the workers need to get together and discuss issues."

I said, "Yes, that's true."

"But you never talk about how we women are suffering. You never talk about Friday."

"Friday?" I asked. "Why Friday?"

She said, "Because Friday is the last day of the week, and it's the worst day for women because we have no money to buy our children food. And you never talk about our sexuality. You do not know about men and women's sexuality--what we can suffer. You never talk about children's education or the absence of men in our home. You never talk about the way we women want or need to be loved."

She was right, I didn't talk about these issues. So for me this was an eye-opening conversation. I began to become more aware of the questions in women's lives. Sure, unions and politics are also women's concerns, but they're not the only thing. I became more aware of the special suffering of women, and of how my own language wasn't inclusive....

[Actually posted at 1 p.m. on January 3, but I changed the time to late January 2 to keep with the Twelve Days of Christmas schedule.]

Seventh Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal (1. Xico! 2. Fork out, folks, it's payday!)

TWO. The last shall be first so number 2 precedes number 1. For those of us who get paid on the first of the month, it's payday, which means that even on meager budgets (e.g. those of us who work for nonprofits, are freelancers, church workers, students, educators, single parents, et al.) we can squeeze out some dollars or pounds or euros or whatever we are making and SEND IT TO THE PEOPLE OF CRISTO REI, an Anglican congregation in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Cidade de Deus.

There are two trustworthy collectors of this offering, one on each side of the Atlantic. Go here for details. Only six days left! The money leaves on Epiphany and you KNOW some of your money wants to go to Brazil. It's cheaper than sending yourself there, right?

Also, it's not really our money, it's God's money, so why not do a little redistribution of wealth?

ONE. Yesterday, I promised you Xico. Here's Xico. Padre Xico de Brasil, more specifically the Rev. Cônego [Canon] Francisco de Assis da Silva, or more simply, Francisco Silva or Xico Silva, and he is the (relatively new) General Secretary of the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil. (You know, Brazil, where our money is going.) He blogs, though not frequently, at Katinho do Rev.

Our brother Xico, a priest and lawyer, is among the wise, pastoral, and energetic group of people leading what is known as the Global Center. (Thanks to Padre Mickey de Panamá for introducing the term and the people to me and to many of us. You can see two of the dancing bishops of the Global Center here, during their recent visit to South Africa for the TEAM conference. One of them is Padre Xico's Presiding Bishop, Reverendisimo Maurício José Araújo de Andrade and the other is the Presiding Bishop from Panama, Revendisimo Julio Ernesto Murray Th., Bishop of la Iglesia Episcopal de Panamá. And do click that green "Global Center" link back at the beginning of this paragraph for a most excellent statement.)

On November 11, Padre Xico wrote on his blog:

Domingo, Novembro 11, 2007

Martin Luther: Sorry for that!

In the last days I saw a variety of declarations delivered by a group of conservative Primates and theologians within the Anglican Communion. In one of these declarations, the Archbishop Akinola compared the current crisis inside the Communion with the context of Reformation. Adding more color on his statement he invoked the image of Luther to say that the conservative group faces the same challenges and needs to embody the same struggle and values defended by the German reformer.

In my opinion, this comparison is absolutely out of context. And surely for Luther's demerit!

I would like to point at least two reasons for justify as it is unhappy this comparison:

1. Luther fought against obscurantism -

One of the main postulates of the Reform was exactly overcome the monopoly of the biblical interpretation by Church chiefs. The Bible was, according to Luther, important element to faith enrichment and the Church laymen owed themselves free access to Scriptures. Each believer has the right to exercise – by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - the gift to interpret the Scriptures and applies her in the personal life, sharing it in the community of faith. The Bible for people represented the hermeneutical upgrade that the Reformation caused for overcome official exclusive interpretations. This step was so important to eliminate the maintenance of dogmatism, fear, and the unique thought.

2. Luther fought against authoritarianism -

The power vector inside church was concentrated on Rome who ruled every matter in spiritual and secular fields. The conception of the divine power in its association with the infallibility were quite untouchable. There was not at least an idea of local Church in which, some autonomy and cultural particularities could respected. The role of the laity was absolutely disregarded. The Reformation contributes to give a more ecclesial perspective for Church, restoring the common priesthood of all believers.

Contradictions

What we see today through the ecclesiology defended by the conservative wing of the Communion is exactly the postulates for return to the authoritarianism and obscurantism.

The God’s Word is seen as a habits norm, moralist rule and untouchable. No one can apply other hermeneutic criteria. NO dialogue with Science, History or the life of believers. The Word of God does not talk with us, neither with our needs.

The second contradiction is the concentration of power. For result, I already affirmed previously, the matter belongs to centralization of power. Is the effort to impose a conservative hegemony who defines what it is right and what is wrong. Maintenance of dependence is the best way to manipulate consciences. A faith that can have no doubt.

The conservatives wish not an ecclesia (in the NT sense) but a sect, where the chiefs know the truth, detains the secret of the sacred deposit and imposes such mysteries to his followers.

The Anglican tradition has its roots also in the Reformation Movement. Scriptures as Frederic Maurice said, was not the last Word of God, but a start point that asks us, our life, and our reason to find the freedom. The Reformation was a fresh wave that brought to society a new scope of values, restoring the faith as a lived experience starting from inside, from the personal experience.

In this way, the comparison with Luther that some conservatives tried to do is quite offensive to the Luther’s memory. Sorry for that!

posted by Xico at 11:33 PM

Caminante, besides being an Episcopal priest in beautiful chilly chilly Vermont and walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela on a regular basis, is Canon Missioner of the Anglican Episcopal Church in El Salvador and a member of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church. She attended the Executive Council's meeting in Dearborn, Michigan this fall and wrote about it here and here. (That second post is mostly photos.)

Xico attended the meeting and wrote about it here.

Earlier in the fall, Padre Mickey pointed his readers to this reflection by Padre Xico on the upcoming Lambeth meeting of Anglican bishops.

Padre Mickey also published this letter from Padre Xico. Among other things, Padre Xico said in the letter: In the light of the crisis that we are experiencing, I reaffirm my conviction that what divides the Anglican Communion today is not the view people have of sexuality or of rights of the homosexual. What divides the Communion is the dispute for power and control.

Hmmm...

So, to quote the one Bible passage about which I tend toward literalism and fundamentalism:

Come... inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me... Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these... you did it to me. (from Matthew 25)

That there Gospel is not about power and control, yo!

I think Padre Xico would agree.

Sixth Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal

The appeal: tonight, a soft sell, since I went hard sell last night. Or was it the night before? Please give to our Brazilian friends in Cidade de Deus, at the Anglican congregation of Christ the King. Details of the OCICBW Community Christmas Appeal are here.

And a short reflection tonight, because I preached this morning and wrote this afternoon and I am a little tuckered out.

But, happily, it is by a Brazilian Anglican.

He speaks of the Brazilian Episcopal Anglican Church as "a valiant venture of being that church [the Anglican Communion] in a non-English world."

The liturgical life of the church is always related to a particular culture... The problem is that non-English Anglicans have inherited their liturgical forms from a very distinctive culture, which is English.... Whereas the church in Brazil has had some awareness of the situation, it has been unable to experiment at the national level [Note from Jane: this does not mean that there is no creative experimentation at the local level, e.g. at Cristo Rei and in other congregations.] with autochthonous and creative forms of cultural expressions in liturgical life. We still hold to a poor translation of portions of the Book of Common Prayer of the American church.

I once proposed a liturgical moratorium for our Province. Bishops would release clergy and lay people from our regular bondage to the Book of Common Prayer to experiment and create. I was called subversive and irresponsible. I still think that this is one of the things we need. Liturgists would organize that moratorium , and the resulst would be analyzed by committees all around the country. ...

... Music is a crucial element in any liturgical experiment. When I speak on the liberation of liturgy from old bondages, I am thinking of the liberation from English and American hymnals currently in use in Brazil. Happily there are already some experiemens with Brazilian music, like samba, modinhas, and bossa nova; but our congregations still think that in order to be sacred, music has to be English. Although Brazilian music is important, I do not think that we should limit the music of the liturgy in this part of the world to our own music. There is a marvelous richness all around the world, ancient and contemporary, that we should share for the sake of beauty and pleasure

Any liturgical reform should also be related to mission, and should be based in a new theology relating mission to joy and freedom. Liturgy and mission are sisters dancing together in the direction of the beauty of the kingdom of God.

*****Jaci Maraschin
******"Culture, Worship, and Spirit"
******in Ian T. Douglas and Kwok Pui-lan, eds., Beyond Colonial Anglicanism: The Anglican Communion in the Twenty-First Century (2001)

This essay was originally presented at the symposium "Unbound! Anglican Worship beyond the Prayer Book" hosted by the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, in January, 1999.

Jaci Maraschin is a priest in the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil, Diocese of Sao Paolo, a professor, author, songwriter and poet.

Tomorrow: Xico!

Fifth Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal

It's Casaldáliga, continued this evening, back by popular demand and also because I was already planning this last night.

More from Dom Pedro Casaldáliga's interview by the late, talented, radiant, died-too-young Mev Puleo. (Yes, I knew her. For a lovely, challenging book on Mev, her faith, her politics, and her relationship with her husband, see The Book of Mev by Mark Chmiel, who was married to Mev until her death at the age of 32.) The interview took place in the early 1990s. Casaldáliga retired from his position as Catholic bishop of São Felix de Arraguaia in 2005.

(A few years before his retirement, Dom Pedro was silenced by then Cardinal Ratzinger under Pope John Paul II. He is now nearly 80 years old, living with Parkinson's and a couple of other serious health conditions.)

The contemplative life isn't just important -- it's my whole life! I always say, the more radically we are revolutionaries, the more radically we should be contemplatives.

... First and foremost in this world, we should destroy the arms factories once and for all. If the bishops and pastors and presidents and politician of the world were sufficiently honest and courageous, we would kneel in front of every single arms factory to prevent their continued production!

Now it's easy for the empire, for capitalism, for the dictators to condemn only the struggle of the poor and to forget about the root of all violence - the institutionalized violence of the very empire.

* * * * *

(During his time as bishop, Dom Pedro lived in a simple home of brick and clay with cement floors.)

In my twenty years here, I've sought to work in teams with religious [i.e. members of religious orders] and laity, married or single. We make this option to mutually complement one another. We pray and eat together, but also have personal space to cultivate our particular identities.

We try to live close to the people, so you won't find us in palaces or curias.

If I lived alone as a bishop in a palace, with a secretary and a cook, I wouldn't have the opportunity to live the daily problems of the people! I wouldn't have the chance to hear the women neighbors who come here to talk with Sister Irene about health problems, or with Maria, the lawyer, about land problems.

... As a bishop, I recognize that we, the hierarchy, are the main ones responsible for the evil that occurs, and for the good that doesn't occur, in the church. I heard a joke that there can only be bishops in hell -- others don't stand a chance of getting in!

At a national meeting of the CEBs [Comunidades Ecclesiales de Base, Christian Base Communities], I invited the bishops to kneel in front of the people in repentance. So often we did not have the prophetic courage to denounce or announce. Many times the Christian people, especially women and the poor, haven't had the opportunity to participate. It's no doubt because the hierarchy closed itself to dialogue.

Hence, the mea culpa should begin with the cupola [the dome or top of a structure, referring to the church hierarchy].

*****

I always say, God will take care of us after we're dead -- we have to take care of now until death! Chapter 25 of Matthew puts it clearly: hunger, thirst, imprisonment will judge us. A faith that isn't expressed in works is dead.

And our works can't be just individual, they must address structures as well. Still, I always say that the biggest problem God will ever have is to condemn someone.

God is love, as St. John says, and love doesn't like to condemn. God sent us his Son not to judge, but to save us.

...

Look, I myself, by the very fact of being a bishop, am not poor. Anyone who goes through a university or seminary or novitiate isn't poor, because we have more possibilities, a culture, a backing that simple poor people lack.

But I, or any relatively bourgeois intellectual or family, can and should "betray" our class and opt for the causes of the poor --the organization, demands and movements of the poor who are trying to liberate themselves.

I'm not going to ask First World families go hungry, but they can renounce certain privileges. We should simplify. For example, we get a lot of help [here] from European groups who create a "self-tax," tithing part of their salary to help the Third World. They renounce trips, luxuries, foods. Solidarity isn't throwing a party to raise alms twice a year! The rich person shouldn't merely be giving alms, but should truly have mercy and compassion on others, as Jesus himself did.

When I begin to understand that every other person is an equal to myself, I can no longer retain my privileges, because to do so would be robbery. I cannot merely give donations, I must pay back what I owe. There's a difference.

....

The U.S. is not "more than Haiti or Guatemala or El Salvador! We are all human beings -- one people should be equal to another people in possibilities, in dignity, in liberty!


Did Dom Pedro say we shouldn't be raising money? He did not. He just said it isn't enough to do so.

Thus I am reminding you: this series is part Latin American reflection, part funding appeal for the parish --especially the children-- of Cristo Rei in the community of Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The money goes to kitchens, classrooms, music, and other infrastructure needs. Two Anglican clergymembers (one in the U.K., one in the U.S., the much beloved Jonathan and Elizabeth) are receiving the funds and holding them until Epiphany when they will send them to our friends in Brazil. They are, I assure you, trustworthy in these matters. (And if they were not, their parish treasurer would bop them over the head -- nonviolently of course. We have accountability in our congregrations.)

Things have been a little slow at the OCICBW... Christmas Appeal and we only have seven days left. So click the link (make sure you read Luiz's post in the Comments section when you get to your bloggy destination) and send some of your local currency. PayPal takes plastic. Also, there is a way to send checks, or cheques if that is your preferred spelling. Waiting till a January 1 payday? Never fear, I will post a big fat reminder on January 1. And smaller ones before and after.


But think of this fund-raiser as an entryway, not an end.

Will we know the people of Cristo Rei as people, as God's people? How can we not only give to them but receive from them too --their riches: their faith, their insight, their wisdom, their strength? How can we see them truly as our sisters and brothers? Where will this heart-warming and challenging Christmas Appeal take us?

Ponder that one in your hearts, sisters and brothers.

First Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal

As promised.

Read. Give. Please.


The two most important forces in my life are God who becomes incarnate and God who escapes all our definitions.

The incarnation is the most beautiful thing that can happen! God so much wants to be committed to the human person that God becomes human: enters what is most deeply human.

Yet every effort to put God into codes, norms, creeds, and dogmas falls short. God is beyond all that. This stirs me to always be looking for God.

I will never grasp the mystery of God!

We must remember that society, the church, , and even families structure themselves very much on the image of God they hold.

We were taught "God the Father." But for us women, our experience of God was much more of a Mother -- in God's closeness, tenderness, friendship. We experience God as Trinity, as Community who unites all kinds of possibilities and diversities!

So we speak of a Black God, Mother God, Worker God.

This de-mystifies what's been passed on to us! In our process of organization and liberation of our people, it's important to meet a God who is more like us.

Yet God throws down every effort to absolutize God.

God is dynamic -- diversity, unity, communion. Here is a God who doesn't have a face -- thus a God who can assume all faces.

I think God is disconcerting. God escapes us.



The fullness of God unites masculine, feminine, all peoples, all races.

....


The relationship between North and South is marked by a great distance -- geographical, racial and social distance. It is a relationship of exclusion. So the first thing we want is the be respected -- respected as a Latin American people, as a Brazilian people, as women, as black people.

Beyond respect, I believe in a relationship of solidarity. I think solidarity comes through a change of place -- leaving where you are a bit. You have to move from the place of imperialism to the place of brother and sister, friendship and equality.

It is also very important to really believe in each other. The other is not "underdeveloped" or "ignorant" ! The other is simply other -- different from myself. But the other also has part of the truth! This is true for all relationships -- U.S./Brazil, men/women, blacks/whites. When we recognize each other's truth, we are able to meet one another in solidarity.

And this liberation comes at a high price -- sometimes our very lives. But I call you to believe in this, to open yourselves to the future, to dream this dream -- a dream that nourishes our lives and our struggle.

*****Silvia Regina de Lima Silva
*****Interview in Mev Puleo, The Struggle Is One: Voices and Visions of Liberation (SUNY Press, 1994)

Afro-Brazilian feminist theologian Silvia Regina de Lima Silva teaches in San Jose, Costa Rica. When Mev Puleo interviewed her in the early 1990s, she was a student at the Pontifical University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and living in a small religious community of Afro-Brazilians, dedicated to serving the black population on the periphery of Rio. Because she chose to live in a poor and often violent neighborhood, she commuted four or five hours daily to and from Rio for classes.

* * * * * * * *
In honor of the Twelve Days of Christmas, I will continue to post short and not too obnoxious daily reminders of the community Christmas appeal for the parish of Cristo Rei (Christ the King) in Cidade de Deus (City of God), on the West side of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, accompanied by quotations from various Latin American Christians.

Portrait of the Artist as Guadalupe (Yolanda Lopez, 1978)

This painting by Chicana political artist Yolanda Lopez caused a scandal when it came out.

I don't think La Virgen minded.

Lopez also portrayed her grandmother and her mother as forms of Guadalupe. I couldn't find good color prints of those portraits. Here are black and white versions.