lenten journal: what's the story?

A couple of nights ago, I posted what has come to be known as the Kony 2012 Video as my blog post. I learned of it through my eleventh graders. One of them was in a documentary studies class I taught last year in which we watched “Ghosts of Rwanda,” a Frontline piece looking at the Rwandan genocide ten years later and “The Devil Came on Horseback,” which is about the human tragedy in Darfur. They know I grew up in Africa and that I am moved by stories of a continent with which I identify; they were moved by what we saw last year. And so, instead of the work I had planned, we watched Kony. They had lots of questions, not the least of which was, “Why don’t we do something to be a part of this? It seems important.”

I came home and made it my blog post on the basis of the residual sadness and anger I carry because Africa does not really matter to Americans as a general rule (as demonstrated in Rwanda and Darfur and mostly because our media have chosen to make connecting us to Africa less important than most anything) and because of the emotion I shared with my students in class. I had heard of Invisible Children but had not done any research on the organization. I knew of Joseph Kony, but not in any current sense. I was moved. I responded – just as the folks who made the video wanted me to do.

This morning, one of the folks I work with at the computer store posted this graphic 

with the caption,

For all of you who posted the Kony video, rather those about to post the video...

Then, from a number of sources, I began to read insight from folks who had also been moved by the video but who didn’t allow their emotion to control their first move. They asked good questions and looked beyond the well crafted call to immediate and specific action. Some of the questions were about the organization, some were about the veracity of the information, some were about the perspective from which the story was being told, some were about the choice of solution being offered. I offer three perspectives that are speaking to me today, all of whom are seeking to do more than criticize or cast suspicion and all of whom have personal ties to Africa.

I was pulled, in particular, by this video of a Ugandan woman who challenged those who would tell a story that is not their own:



Ethan Zuckerman writes at “My Heart’s in Accra":

I’m starting to wonder if this is a fundamental limit to attention-based advocacy. If we need simple narratives so people can amplify and spread them, are we forced to engage only with the simplest of problems? Or to propose only the simplest of solutions?

As someone who believes that the ability to create and share media is an important form of power, the Invisible Children story presents a difficult paradox. If we want people to pay attention to the issues we care about, do we need to oversimplify them? And if we do, do our simplistic framings do more unintentional harm than intentional good? Or is the wave of pushback against this campaign from Invisible Children evidence that we’re learning to read and write complex narratives online, and that a college student with doubts about a campaign’s value and validity can find an audience? Will Invisible Children’s campaign continue unchanged, or will it engage with critics and design a more complex and nuanced response.

That’s a story worth watching.

Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay writes,

Most people don’t want to feel like they are being rescued. That can be humiliating. So… what do we do with a movement that does not work toward dignity?

Do we simply applaud it for the marketing genius that it is? Do we buy into it and support the cause even if it turns out to be misguided or misinformed because we don’t want to be the poop in the punch bowl?

In closing, I do applaud the western world for looking at this situation in the world. It is far beyond our backyards and it does not encroach on our drive into work, or our gaming, or general lives… We have shown in our immediacy that we do have pulses and hearts. We have shown that our reflex toward justice is still strong. What we should do is match our passion for justice with wisdom and humility. It was Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, who told me, “ Justice without mercy is tyranny.”

Thank Invisible Children for bringing this issue into the public conscience. Please take a breath and walk humbly into the realm of action.

How do we keep the work from hurting more than helping? These are the questions that we must ask. These are the questions that I wish Invisible Children was asking before they launched this campaign to coincide with our election year. It is a good marketing idea. It just isn’t a great and dignifying form of action.

Loving kindness, doing justice, and walking humbly with our God calls for us to live in the creative tension between immediate response and thoughtful action; it also calls us to learn how to let listening be our primary posture. (You realize, I hope, I’m talking mostly to myself here.) I’ve written recently about wondering what Jesus would ask; I wonder, in this case, if the questions might include

Who is telling the story? and
To whom does the story belong?

Then I can ask -- ask them and ask God, “What is my role in their story?” and become a part of the cast.

Peace,
Milton

news to me

Not quite six years ago, Ginger and I got to spend a month in Greece and Turkey tracing the steps of the apostle Paul, thanks to a sabbatical grant from the Eli Lily Foundation. Greece has a burgeoning Christian tourist trade, so we traveled with a group for our time there.l In Turkey, we were on our own and found our way through that wonderful and hospitable country thanks to a Turkish travel agent I found listed in the Lonely Planet guide. When we did group things we were a part of much less homogenous groups than we had known in Greece. On a half day bus tour in Istanbul we shared the bus with people from Iran, Hungary, Kazakhstan, England, the Czech Republic, and Australia. When we had time to talk over tea, the first thing each of us said was, “We’re nothing like our government.”

We spent a week in Izmir, which is where Ephesus once was, and had a chance to get to know some of the folks in our hotel over a few days. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were both going strong and people had a lot of questions about the choices then President Bush was making. One Australian man, whose name I have since forgotten, asked with some frustration, “Why aren’t the American people speaking up?”

“They aren’t getting the same information as the rest of the world,” I answered.

That realization was one of the biggest shocks of the trip. In our hotel rooms across Greece and Turkey we were able to watch CNN International. Each day they had hour long programs that spanned the globe: an hour on Asia, then Africa, then Europe, then South America. The delved into the issues on every continent as though it mattered for everyone to be informed. There was little or no celebrity coverage or tables full of pontificating pundits that fill up American air time. And it was the same company carrying out both slates of programming.

The American media thinks the American people are stupid, was my conclusion.

I thought of those days again this evening as Ginger and I were catching up on Daily Shows we missed seeing this week and John Stewart pointed to the cover of TIME Magazine last week around the world

and the TIME cover in the United States.

Nothing much has changed. They still think we are stupid, or perhaps so clueless and privileged that we don’t have to understand what the rest of the world doing. We can be left with the fluff and the mistaken belief that everyone else in the world wishes they were us. For, as John Mayer sang so well,

when you trust your television
what you get is what you’ve got
‘cause when they own the information
they can bend it all they want.

One of my Christmas presents was a subscription to Poets & Writers magazine. In one of the articles in the last issue was this quote:

You have to put yourself in a position to discover something new.

Though the writer was not talking specifically about how we stay informed, he’s on to something. The word news is simply the plural of the word new. We do need to put ourselves in a position to discover news and not let ourselves be fed what seems most commercially viable to the media moguls, or what feels most agreeable to us. As much as I would like to blame the editors of TIME, the only reason I know they had other covers around the world is because John Stewart told me, and that’s my bad. The world deserves better from me.

TIME and CNN and Fox and the rest of them are the fast food of the news and entertainment industry. To depend on them makes as much sense as relying on Burger King or McDonalds to give me a good nutritious meal everyday. It’s up to me to feed my body food that matters; the same goes for my mind and heart. Back in my Royal Ambassador days (for you who didn’t grow up Baptist, think Southern Baptist Cub Scouts), we used to say, “As a Royal Ambassador, I will do my best to become a well informed, responsible follower of Christ . . . .”

How can I live out my calling if I don’t know what is going on around me and beyond me? The short answer is I can’t. Living out my calling means putting myself in a position to discover the news that I might do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.

Peace,
Milton

inconsequential

How to live with the adjective inconsequential?

That’s the way John Berger posed the question as I sat with his book a couple of days ago in the coffee shop waiting for time to start my after school job. He was talking about the role of the artist and writer in the face of the violence which has dominated our world for centuries. What good does it do to write poetry and sing songs and make whatever art we can to wage peace and speak truth to power when the someday when we shall overcome never gets any closer on the calendar?

So one asks oneself: Do words count? And there must sometimes come back a reply like this: Words here are like stones put into pockets of roped prisoners before they are thrown into a river. (79)

The news talked this morning about a couple of cities, including nearby Charlotte, where the last of the Occupy campers were being evicted by police. The tone of the newscasters came across as one of the now-we-can-be-done-with-that variety. The criticism has been that the folks who lived in our parks for so long weren’t focused enough and didn’t know what they were protesting for, but I think that criticism misses the point. As Berger continues,

One protests because not to protest would be too humiliating, too diminishing, too deadly. One protests in order to save the present moment, whatever the future holds. To protest is to refuse being reduced to a zero and to an enforced silence. Therefore, at the very moment a protest is made, if it is made, there is a small victory. (79)

Though I was miles away from any of the camps, I was encouraged by those who took to the streets and the parks because they reminded me to not give into my cynicism. I have allowed the political process in this country to reduce me to feeling like a zero. I have let myself believe that the lobbyists have had the last word by buying off our alleged leaders leaving me, well, inconsequential.

And I’m not sure I’m wrong. The truth is the One Percent have most of the money and the power and they continue to tilt the game their way. The truth is, as John Stewart commented the other night on The Daily Show, “the poor have shitty lobbyists.” The truth is the candidates will spend enough money on their campaigns to fully fund Head Start programs across the country but will instead waste the cash on the political equivalent of a playground fight. Yet, the protestors in the park call me to a different view, as does John Berger. They call me to ask a better question:

How to live with the adjective inconsequential?

The adjective is temporal. Perhaps a possible and adequate response is spatial? To go closer and closer to what is being redeemed from the present within the hearts of those who refuse the present’s logic. A storyteller can sometimes do this.

The refusal of the protesters then becomes the feral cry, the rage, the humour, the illumination of the women, men, and children in a story. Narrative is another way of making a moment indelible, for stories when heard stop the unilinear flow of time and render the adjective inconsequential meaningless. (80)

As I hear the feral cry of the Occupy-ers, I wonder where are the feral Faithful? The voices crying in the wildnerness, “Prepare ye, the way of the Lord”? For those who have been called to proclaim liberty to the captives, we have been far too silent. Or, at least, I have.

Last week, I had the honor of going with Ginger to the annual meeting of Durham Congregations In Action where Ginger was installed as president for the coming year. DCIA is a strong voice of protest and promise in Durham and I’m proud of both Ginger and the group. The keynote speaker was William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, another essential voice of faithful protest and hope in our state. He spoke with the power and poetry of a prophet, and asked a good question of his own:

Do you know who you are?

At the close of the service, Ginger was called to offer the benediction. She asked us to turn and face each other from either side of the hall and then each side took turns asking the other, “Do you know who you are?” with as much attitude as we could muster. We volleyed the question back and forth four or five times, the emphasis changing as we spoke:

Do you KNOW who you are?
Do YOU know who you are?
Do you know who YOU are?

I know who I want to be. I know, most days, what story I want to write with my life and I far too often let myself forget and fall prey to feeling inconsequential. I know it is far easier to define myself as not being one of those whose actions I hold in contempt than it is to define myself and tell my story. Jesus knew what he was doing in calling us to love our enemies because that love takes away any chance of using them as fuel for our arrogance and righteous indignation. The real story is there is no Us and Them, only Us. In that context, do I know who I am?

To you Occupy-ers, I’m sorry I am late to the game as far as speaking up and offering an encouraging word. You are speaking truth to power because you are telling a story: your story, our story. Perhaps parable would be a better word because, like the ones Jesus told, the point is not that easy to figure out yet there’s something in there worth digging for. What you are doing reminds me of words that matter from one of my favorite stories, King Lear:

The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. (V,iii,322-323)

Words count. Actions matters. Faith works.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: looking for scout

We’re beginning to make the turn towards home in To Kill a Mockingbird in my American Lit. class. We had a discussion today about the way in which a crisis exposes both the things that tie us together and the things that tear us apart. Maycomb, the little town where the story takes place, had some deep divisions around race and class that stayed mostly unspoken until Atticus Finch, a white lawyer, agreed to represent Tom Robinson, an African-American man who had been accused of raping a white woman. She also happened to be dirt poor. In a few pages, the biases and boundaries of the small town were exposed as though a sirocco had blown through blowing all the top soil into the next county and leaving everything out in the open.

In one of the most powerful scenes, a group of white men come to the jail to exact their version of justice on Tom. Atticus is sitting on the porch of the jail (Where but the South do you have a jail with a big porch?) to be a human barrier between the lynch mob and his client. The men respect Atticus but don’t intend to be deterred. What none of them knew was that Scout had followed her father to the jail and was hiding in the shadows. As the tempers begin to flare and the volume begin to grow, Scout recognizes one of the men as the father of one of her classmates and she calls out to him and asks about his son. The shouting stops and the man answers the question. Scout calls out in greeting to some of the other men who greet her in return, and, within a few minutes, start heading for home, humbled by a ten-year old prophet.

Her forthrightness turned a light on the lynch mob and called them into honesty.

Though I won’t feign understanding of all of the implications of the Wikileaks mess that is going on, I do think about Scout calling those men by name when I hear another story explaining what was in the diplomatic cables. I am not naïve. I know the world has convinced itself that secrecy and even deceit are a necessary part of diplomacy and politics. And look how well it’s working. From the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to elections in Haiti to civil war in Sudan to the arrogance and incompetence of our own leaders in Washington, our leaders sit just as Buddy the Elf accused the false Santa: on a throne of lies. And they probably smell like beef and cheese, too.

Power is the primary currency and it has left us bankrupt.

At least in the book, there’s a sense that the men came to themselves, much like the prodigal son, and realized they needed to stop what they were doing and go home. Listening to the congressional rhetoric, the win-at-all-costs-anything-for-power mentality feels conscious and brazen. Wikileaks or no, they are going to keep on keeping secrets and banking both power and money because that is what they think matters most. While Congress let the Dream Act and the chance to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” fall by the wayside, the same Wall Street firms that imploded our economy are paying out $90,000,000,000 (yep – 10 zeros) in bonuses (so they need those tax cuts to continue, don’t you know).

King Herod, who would have done quite well in Washington, was willing to wipe out every toddler in the land because he was afraid of whom Jesus might become. Two thousand years later, we as the Body of Christ aren’t scaring anyone hardly at all, or expecting much to change. Christmas will come and Washington will go on having prayer breakfasts and listening to lobbyists without any sense of irony and very little integrity, ceaselessly campaigning for the next election.

I am not saying I expect our government or this nation to be Christian. It is not by definition. I am saying for people created in the image of a subversive, inside out, unabashedly loving God who picks the poor every time, we have work to do to make speaking up our daily practice rather than letting it become an occasional event.

Peace,
Milton

sunday sonnet #9

The text today was the parable of the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8). The story is not an easy one. One of the main things I took away from this morning was a big part of the call to live like Jesus lies in our persistence. The widow just wouldn’t give up until she got justice. Would that those at the margins of life could depend on us to be so tireless and determined.

The widow relentlessly pleaded;
To her justice the judge finally relented.
She finally got what she needed,
And I’m wondering who each represented.

Am I like judge, grown tired and cold,
numb to needs in Haiti and Darfur;
or could I be the widow who never gives up,
whose hope and persistence endure?

It’s not about tired, but tenacity:
at it’s heart, what the story is saying
is live with both hope and audacity --
practice love, practice peace, practice praying

I will live out more of what Jesus meant
When I persist beyond my discouragement

Peace,
Milton