by Melissa Taft
When my two kids were little, I found myself living in a strange sort of tension around Easter. On the one hand, I did not want to ever take the focus away from the ‘reason for the season’ – Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection. I wanted that to always be paramount. On the other hand, I am someone with a love language of gifts, an appreciation of tradition, and a desire for my kids to not feel bitterly deprived of fun and rituals around silly or fairy tale traditions. I had grown up with fun and traditions as a firm part of my family heritage, and so I didn’t want to give up altogether on the Easter Bunny. Strange as that may seem, I was concerned that tipping too far one way or another would end up backfiring. I wanted to find some balance. I just personally felt joy in the coloring of eggs and the giving of baskets, and wanted to pass on the fun to my kids.
Yet I was dissatisfied with the idea of celebrating two Easters – a secular and a sacred. To me, the sacred must be paramount, but how could it compete for affection with the allure of chocolate treats and a bunny bearing gifts? Wrestling with that same tension, Christine has put together a resource list for celebrating Holy Week with Kids and another resource list for celebrating Lent and Easter with Kids that have a wide range of ideas, posts, resources, and inspiration.
For my own family, I began to notice the ways I was already using secular symbols or rituals to point to the sacred. Gifts were already a spiritual practice in our home, and I already felt quite confident about our Advent/Christmas season being a blend in ways that maintained the focus I wanted. Nature afforded ample examples of the fingerprints of God and ways to know Him. Scripture was already brought into ‘everyday’ situations. So I set about dreaming and praying about how to make that happen, and an Easter basket tradition was born.
I took the traditional secular symbols of Easter and looked for how they represented the sacred. Even the Easter Bunny has stood in for some spiritual principle or a Bible verse over the years – from God giving good gifts to His children to delighting in creation to celebrating creativity and imagination and more. I used eggs to represent the Trinity, new life in Christ, spiritual and creation renewal, environmental care, and more. Even the candy had an idea or a verse tied to it – the easiest one being “taste and see that the Lord is good!” – Psalm 34:8 For example, one year I used various Easter/nature symbols to illustrate the transformative power of the resurrection. Instead of a typical basket, I used flower pots to hold the treasures which included wooden butterfly stages toys I’d bought handmade and actual butterflies to add to a butterfly habitat we had. Well, the caterpillar form anyways! Flower seeds to represent growth and transformation as well, an egg I’d made to add to their kitchen toy collection to represent the trinity, a headband with a lamb to represent the lamb of God and how that sacrifice covers our sins, a wordless book I’d made, and other treasures.
This also gave me some opportunities to think outside the box with the baskets and revelries, and to do my best to honor my own buying principles. Instead of heaps of candy, I often opted for a few quality pieces that were fair-trade and ecologically conscious – or at the very least, limited to one type of ‘regular’ candy. I found baskets on my local Buy Nothing group that I reused – when I wasn’t being clever with the ‘basket’ that is. I bought shredded paper that I reused instead of the plastic grass. I even found some biodegradable Easter Eggs! Sometimes items were thrifted. I had a lot of fun over the years coming up with themes and finding items that my kids would use and enjoy but did not betray my principles and illustrated the sacred.
As they grew, the themes matured as well. One year it was all about the armor of God – new needed boots to represent the feet shod with the Gospel of Peace, vintage second-hand bought hats to wear on Easter and other occasions to represent the helmet of salvation, special necklaces to represent the breastplate of righteousness, etc. The top photo’s theme included tools for Christian life, and the baskets themselves were sturdy fair-trade market totes. Another year we were going on a long trip via plane, train, and automobiles and they needed luggage so I used Easter as a chance to budget travel items we needed in and made the theme about taking God with you wherever you go, as He is already there. One year it was new umbrellas (His Banner over Me Is Love/Protected Under His Wings) filled with other promises and admonitions – bubbles to represent the Holy Spirit, a duck given via World Vision to represent feeding the hungry, fishy crackers since we are to be fishers of men, and more.
Whether a can of food, a pair of shoes, or even the Easter Bunny – it is possible to point the way to Christ. The secular is but a thin veil to the sacred. I hoped to encourage my children to love not only in words but also in deeds, and to see that Easter belongs to Jesus. Just as everything in creation does.
Join Christine Sine, Tom Sine, and others for Inhabit 2022 on April 29-30th in Seattle- a live conference by Parish Collective. Explore stories of hope and be encouraged to be the church in your neighborhood. You are not alone – the everyday realities are carried by us all. Click here for more info!
originally posted on our partner Circlewood’s blog, The Ecological Disciple, here. Above photo: SYNERGY, 2009, LAKE WANAKA, NEW ZEALAND
When viewing the work of collaborative artists Martin Hill and Philippa Jones of New Zealand, the precariousness of the art may be the first thing you notice. As with other environmental artists, including Andy Goldsworthy, who I have written about in the past, the viewer often wonders, “How did they do that?” In addition to the precariousness of the design, there is a precariousness in its very existence; the work is temporary, often with photographs being the only lasting record of its existence.
The Shape of Time
The temporary nature of the work parallels how these two artists see their world and their work. Their art has much to say about the way we live in this world and the changes we need to make to live better within it.
Given that the earth is fundamentally a circular system (consider seasons, the water cycle, the cycles of plant life), the things that last are those that are sustainable. In natural systems, which have developed over time, things either adapt or die, depending on whether they are sustainable or not. If something is sustainable, it takes only what it needs from the natural system and eventually returns those things back into the system. All of nature itself operates in this same sustainable, cyclical pattern—a self-sustaining system, one that humanity essentially adhered to until recent times.
Industrialization, however, has brought about a different way of living. With its dominant view of time as linear, modern practice mostly disregards cyclical sustainability, using resources without concern for either what is being taken from earth systems or what is being put back into those same systems. Progress, rather than sustainability is the driving mindset, with short-term goals such as the extraction of resources or the success of a particular project being the sole focus.
…the aim of human industrial design is money and instant effect. It travels the shortest distance between wanting and making; and when wanting fades and making proves imperfect, the product is cast aside and the voracious appetite of humanity pushes onward, making more and more things, using more and more resources, creating more and more waste. Such a design process is called a linear system and it follows a take-make-discard model of production. [1]
This linear perspective sees time as a strict movement forward, with no need or desire to circle back, but only progress from a distinct beginning toward a future end, supposedly better and distinct from what has been.
This perspective tends to devalue the present, seeing it only as a stepping stone to the future. The earth itself can be disregarded within this mindset as it is reduced, in the economic point of view, to a mere conglomerate of resources to be used, or in the overly spiritual point of view, as an insignificant waypoint on the route to heaven. Neither of these views values the earth itself as a gift from God which we are meant to love, nurture, and protect, and neither view fosters sustainability.
It can be difficult to change a mindset we are immersed within. How difficult is it for you to look at time from a cyclical viewpoint instead of a linear one? Do you think this changes how you view issues of sustainability?
The Shape of Systems
The disconnection between the human system and the natural system can be seen as humans both suck up tremendous amounts of limited resources and also dispel waste that cannot be absorbed healthily back into the natural system. The art of Hill and Jones spotlights this difference between the destructively linear human systems and Nature’s restorative cyclical systems.
AUTUMN LEAF CIRCLE, 2010, CLUTHA RIVER, WANAKA, NEW ZEALAND
This value of sustainability is present both practically and thematically in the art they create.
Practically, the materials they use are from the natural environment and when the sculpture is complete, it is “returned to nature, thereby mimicking natural systems that operate without creating waste. Everything dies and becomes food or energy for something else.” This creates a closed loop design consistent with the circular pattern of sustainability which natural systems are based on. Nothing is wasted.
Thematically, sustainability is addressed through the specific meanings that Hill and Jones connect to the shapes they use in their sculptures. Knowing the language of those shapes—what each shape represents—deepens the viewer’s experience and understanding of the art. Spheres and discs typically represent the earth, with its natural cyclical cycles. The spiral represents growth and the infinity symbol represents continuous flow or eternity. Straight-sided forms such as triangles, diamonds or squares represent human technology and man-made systems.
Their art shows both the aesthetic and practical beauty of these systems working harmoniously, and particularly emphasizes the necessity of human systems fitting themselves within the natural systems that exist. You can see the aesthetic beauty of this when you see works such as the one pictured below. The placement of a semicircle upon a reflective surface, such as a lake, turns the surface’s reflection into the other half of that semicircle. The result is complete circle, a joint art project on sustainability in which one half of the project is man-made and the other half is nature-made. In a sense, this partnership creates the complete work work of art.
The interplay between man and nature is portrayed symbolically in artwork such as the sculpture, “Solve for Pattern,” which is pictured below. By placing a diamond (representing man) within a circle (representing nature), the artists are showing through metaphor that human systems must adapt themselves and fit within the natural systems around them.
What can you do to create less waste and consume fewer unneeded resources? Are there ways in which you intentionally adapt to fit within the earth’s natural systems? Are there ways in which you perhaps unintentionally disregard the earth’s natural systems?
Giving a Better Shape to Humanity
In their recent work, a human shape has begun to appear in many of the pieces. This is due to the realization that we have entered what is being called the Anthropocene era—a time in which humans are the species with the most dominant influence on earth.
As the species having by far the largest effect on the earth, we are also the species capable of changing the ecological trajectory. Humans can be either guardians or destroyers, a truth represented in these sculptures through the inclusion of the human figure. Below, marsh reeds create an outline of a person’s figure, and the title, Wetland Guardian, highlights the positive role man can and must take on if the planet is to recover its equilibrium.
It is interesting to think about how we view our own personal legacy. Often when people want to leave a mark on the world, it has to do with leaving a signpost of their own existence. It is interesting to consider what it might mean to approach this more humbly, with more of a sustainable, cyclical mindset – for me personally, our parent organization, Circlewood, continues to help my thinking in this area. What might it look like to have a positive, sustainable effect on the world you are a part of?
Hill and Jones continue to work to bring about change in how we view the world. After 25 years, they recently completed a project called the Fine Line Project, which emphasizes the connectedness of the earth through a symbolic line that ties together 12 environmental sculptures that they placed in remote locations such as Madagascar and Antarctica. The “line” encircles the globe, bringing home the reality that all the locations of the sculptures (and all the places in between) are part of a connected whole, the circle of the earth we live on.
SCULPTURE NO.12, MT. RUAPEHU, NEW ZEALAND 2019
To learn more about Martin Hill and Philippa Jones and see more of their work, visit Martin Hill’s website.
Feel free to contact me directly at info@circlewood.online. – Louise
Tomorrow! Wednesday, April 6th, join Christine Sine and Lilly Lewin for a discussion on the injustice of Holy Week. Live on Facebook in the Godspace Light Community Group at 9am PT. Can’t join us live? Catch it later on youtube!
“We are born knowing how to cry, but it takes another to teach us how to cry well and with purpose” “Your wails are meant to be heard” (This Here Flesh , Cole Arthur Riley, 106)
When I read this in Cole Arthur Riley’s inspirational book over the weekend two images came to mind. One was of the Jews praying at the Wailing wall in Jerusalem, particularly this photo which has been circulating around Facebook over the last week. The second image was of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane just before his betrayal.
It suddenly hit me – Jesus prayed tears of blood. That is pretty forceful weeping, and I imagine that just like at the Wailing Wall, his prayers were not silent but loud with wailing and deep emotion as he howled in pain and sorrow. He wept with the pain of a tortured soul crying out to God. Not, I suspect, because he was afraid to face the agony of the sacrifice he knew was coming, but because he did not want it to be necessary. He wept out of love for a world that he knew was meant to be good and beautiful and loving and yet was so badly broken that it required the sacrifice of God to bring it healing and wholeness.
As Jesus begins this last agonizing journey of lament, I can see him crying tears of agony for the people of Ukraine, and Myanmar, of Sudan and Ethiopia and Afghanistan. I can see him crying for every despised and abused Black person, and LGBTQIA person, so many places and people that still call for his deep soul-wrenching lament of blood-like tears. I also see him crying for the earth that groans under the weight of pollution and destruction, weeping tears of blood for us who are meant to be loving and caring and yet are not.
Then I am hit again. How could the disciples sleep through that kind of praying? How could they not be out there praying and weeping blood like tears with Jesus, consumed like he was by the horrors of the brokenness and suffering of the world around them? Perhaps, they stayed awake for a short while, boosted by the adrenaline of the exciting Passover meal they had just enjoyed. But they were really looking for a king very much like the Roman emperor. A God who wailed and howled and wept at the extent of pain and suffering in the world just put them to sleep.
Would we sleep through that kind of praying too? It seems to me we do that every time we turn our backs on someone who is suffering and in pain, and every time we are indifferent to the growing pollution and impact of climate change around us. “Their wails are meant to be heard.” And yet we like the disciples seem so often to be asleep.
I can’t believe it has taken me almost 50 years of following Jesus to recognize not just the incredible agony of Jesus weeping in the garden but also its reason. And I cannot believe it has taken me just as long to recognize myself in the sleeping disciples. The significance of Jesus weeping in the garden of Gethsemane should be just as important to us as his crucifixion and resurrection are. His disappointment at our inability to stay awake with him is so vivid. Why can’t my followers enter into the pain and suffering of this world as much as I do he seems to be saying. Why don’t they have the depth of courage and the same passion of their convictions I do.?
Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, and we all see ourselves shouting Hosanna and waving palm fronds as we rejoice with Jesus and his triumphant procession into Jerusalem. But it is not long before the atmosphere changes and many of us are no longer shouting Hosanna to the king, but “crucify him,” and I wonder if our indifference to the depth of Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane and its importance for the new world God is giving birth to is the place that we lose him. We have such short attention spans, especially when it comes to pain and suffering. We want to join Jesus in his joy filled moments but not accept the pathway of pain that we often must pass through to find that joy.
So what can we do to wake ourselves up?
First we need to join Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and face up to the depth of pain God experiences every single day because of the suffering of our world.
Second we need to commit to staying awake to the suffering around us. Not just for a few moments but every day, all day. Sometimes we fall asleep because we deliberately close our eyes to pain and suffering and I am concerned that when another tragedy catches our attention we will forget about Ukraine and all the other suffering places in our world. Yet this is the God we follow and through the example of Jesus, we are shown exactly how radical following this God is.
Third we need to walk together with those who are already on this pathway as well as those who are struggling to stay awake. The older I get, the more upset I become about the injustice and pain in our world and the more I want to make a difference – even if it is only through writing and challenging others to walk with me. I thank God every day for the diversity of voices that are rising around me – for the Black and Hispanic and Indigenous voices. For the LGBTQIA persons, and the growing number of eco theologians and Christian environmentalists.
So as you get ready for Holy Week, I pray that you too will be prepared to stay awake with Jesus in the garden and fill yourself with the same passion he has for those suffering in our world.
Journey through Lent with this downloadable bundle featuring Prayer Cards, 40 Daily Ideas Guide for Lent, and our Lenten devotional – A Journey Into Wholeness: Soul Travel from Lent to Easter. Bundled together for convenience and savings!
I am delighted that after a short break St Andrews is once again recording these beautiful contemplative services. Enjoy!
A contemplative service with music in the spirit of Taize. Carrie Grace Littauer, prayer leader, with music by Kester Limner and Andy Myers.
Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-710-756 with additional notes below:
“In the Lord ” Copyright and all rights reserved by GIA/Les Presses de Taizé
“Rabboni Beloved” By Kester Limner and Andy Myers, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
“Seek Ye First” By Karen Lafferty
Copyright 1972 Maranatha! Music
“O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” Public domain hymn, arrangement by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
Thank you for praying with us! www.saintandrewsseattle.org
by Brenda Griffin Warren Photo by G Freihalter: Abbess Burgundofara with her crozier representing the leadership of her Monastery and Abbey. Stained Glass at Eglise Saint Sulpice à la Celle-Sur-Morin.
As female followers of Christ, some have been taught that women are to be submissive and quiet. Likewise, men are to be tough, strong leaders, and the power-brokers. It is a quandary with which many women of faith struggle.
Yet, let’s meet the 7th century Abbess Burgundofara who was the founder of the famous Evoriacum Monastery in France, which after her death was renamed in her honor, Faremoutiers Abbey (Fara’s Monastery). Abbess Burgundofara was both tough and tender.
Faremoutiers Abbey located near modern-day Disneyland Paris was likely the first double monastery in France. These Celtic double monasteries began in Ireland and they were places where both monks and nuns lived on the same monastic grounds under the Rule of an Abbott or Abbess as the Religious head. The nuns and monks lived in separate quarters, but often worked and worshipped together.
When Burgundofara was a child, St. Columbanus, the famous Irish monk, visited in her home and blessed and dedicated her to God. This left such an indelible mark upon her soul that she resisted her parents’ attempts to force her to marry a few years later. Burgundofara spoke boldly to her father about becoming a nun. She said to him: “To lose my life for the sake of virtue, and fidelity to the promise I have made to God, would be a great happiness.”
As founder and Abbess of Faremoutiers Abbey, Burgundofara grew into a strong leader who was not afraid to speak her mind. Those who lived on her monastic grounds discovered that she was both tough and tender.
Interestingly, it is recorded by the 7th c. writer Jonas of Bobbio that a monk named Agrestius from one of Columbanus’ monasteries “felt called” to mansplain Burgundofara concerning his thoughts on how she was not being a good Abbess. He castigated her for using the Rule of Columbanus (of which he did not approve) in her monastery. Well, let’s just politely say…he met tough.
This is how Jonas of Bobbio recorded that historic confrontation, “Agrestius then made his way to Burgundofara to try if he might defile her with his insinuations. But the virgin of Christ confounded him, not in a feminine manner, but with a virile response: “Why have you come here, you confuter of truth, inventor of new tales, pouring out your honey-sweetened poison to change healthy food into deadly bitterness? You slander those whose virtues I have experienced. From them I received the doctrine of salvation. Their erudition has opened the way to the kingdom of Heaven for many. Recall the words of Isaiah: ‘Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil.’ Hurry and turn wholly away from this insanity.”
Each time I read this, I want to yell out, “Bravo, Burgundofara!“
She was known for not only her personal courage, strength, and toughness, but also for her tender care, counsel, and devotion for those at Faremoutiers. Jonas of Bobbio wrote that after serving as Abbess of Faremoutiers for thirty-seven years, Burgundofara had a fever and “died.” She was so tough that somehow, she managed to come back to life after visiting the heavenlies and was told she had to make restitution with three nuns whom she had hurt. She received their forgiveness, lived six more months, and then prophesied of her date and time of death. When she died in 657AD, it was recorded that her body smelled of sweet balsam.
A solemn mass was held thirty days after Abbess Burgundofara’s final Resurrection Day. Hopefully, it is not blasphemous to ponder that they waited this long to ensure that she would not come back to life. Her Will (Testamentum) confirmed that all the servants she had freed in her lifetime would continue to be free.
The Faremoutiers Monastic grounds still exist, 1400 years later. Sadly, the French Revolution destroyed her monastic buildings, but in 1931, a group of Benedictine nuns came to reoccupy a building on the very spot of the ruins of the old abbey. A few nuns still live and serve there.
Yes, Abbess Burgundofara was a strong, powerful, and deeply spiritual leader. She was both tough and tender.
Her feast day is April 3.
_______________
Here is a link if you would like to read more about Abbess Burgundofara and Faremoutiers Abbey.
This upcoming Wednesday, April 6th, join Christine Sine and Lilly Lewin for a discussion on the injustice of Holy Week. Live on Facebook in the Godspace Light Community Group at 9am PT. Can’t join us live? Catch it later on youtube!
As we journey towards Easter this year, we are watching for how God gives us Beauty in the Ashes.
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captivesand release from darkness for the prisoners,[a] 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of joyinstead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor. ISAIAH 61: 1-3 NIV
A couple of weeks ago, during our ART WALK, I discovered a new to me artist who was all about bringing BEAUTY into our world, even when the world wasn’t always beautiful. Her name is ALMA THOMAS. Art and Theology blog has a great post on Alma.
ART WALK has been a part of our church practice since we started thinplace as a house church back in our Cincinnati days. We go as a group to the art museum and listen to a passage of scripture and then we have an hour or more to go be with the art and allow the Holy Spirit to take us wherever the Holy Spirit wants to go. You might visit many areas of the museum or stand in front of one painting for the entire time. It just depends upon the day and how the Spirit is leading. Then we meet back together for lunch or dinner to discuss what we noticed, what we saw and what God talked to us about through the art.
This time we met at the Frist Art Museum here in Nashville for art walk. I spent the first part of my time walking through the exhibit downstairs “On the Horizon: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Perez Art Museum in Miami.” There were many amazing pieces but due to the political climate of Cuba, a lot of the art was dark and felt like walking through ashes, especially because of the invasion of Ukraine. So I decided to wander upstairs to see what might be there.
“Air View of a Spring Nursery ” by Alma W Thomas
WOW! what a difference a flight of stairs made! The works of Alma W. Thomas jumped off the wall in beautiful color! The exhibit itself is called “EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL” and it is a retrospective of Ms. Thomas amazing life. I sadly had never heard of her or seen any of work before this day, but now I am a huge fan! I love that she was the first graduate in Art from Howard University in Washington, DC. I love that she spent 35 years as a teacher, teaching art at Shaw Junior High School and I love that she lead a group called ” The Sunday Afternoon Beauty Club” at her church, helping students experience art, creativity and find beauty in their lives! What if every church had a Sunday Afternoon Beauty Club?
While she was always involved in the arts in DC and active as an artist, she really didn’t concentrate on painting until after she retired from teaching. She experimented with color and abstract forms, but she didn’t discover her bold brushwork style until she was preparing for a solo show at Howard University when she was 75 years old. She was inspired by the light coming through the leaves of the holy tree in her yard. The patterns of light gave her the idea for what became her signature style called “Alma’s stripes.” When Alma was 80 years old, she became the first Black woman to have a solo exhibit of her work at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. I love that she kept learning and painting all her life! She even devised a way to paint when her body got to tired and it was hard to move easily. Alma died in February of 1978 at 87. Her art got a new lease on life and became popular again, when the Obamas added her work ” Resurrection” to the White House Collection and hung it in the Old Family dining room for everyone to enjoy who ate there. Watch the video below to learn more!
CREATION alma thomas
Watch a great video on ALMA and let her become your new favorite artist too!
Try some ART and Create some BEAUTY inspired by Alma Thomas on your own!
create your own
Grab some paper and some crayons or markers and LISTEN to the podcast and follow the instructions: DRAW TOGETHER with Wendy Mac
or grab some paints and watch and follow
LISTEN : Alma found beauty in music too! LISTEN to the some of music Alma used to paint to on this spotify playlist created for the art exhibit by the Chrysler Museum of Art. “ALMA THOMAS Everything is Beautiful”
GOING DEEPER:
Which of Alma Thomas’s paintings speak to you?
What other artist inspires you to see beauty in our world?
Take time between now and Easter and visit an art museum or art gallery and allow God to speak to you through the art.
READ Why Beauty Matters in Wartime
Watch for Beauty in the Ashes!
They Laid Him in the Tomb by Alma Thomas
“The ashes on our head remind us that we are dust and to dust we will return. Yet upon this dust of ours,
God blew his Spirit of life. So we should no longer live our lives chasing dust, chasing things that are here today and gone tomorrow.
Let us return to the Spirit the Giver of Life, let us return to the Fire that resurrects our ashes.”
POPE FRANCIS
If you are interested in learning more about ART WALKS or having me lead one in your town, just email me at freerangeworship@gmail.com and watch for thinplace soul care retreats including ART WALKS coming soon!
Sometimes the thought of being a child again is appealing. Not so many worldly cares, decisions, responsibilities. A comfortable home provided for you. Time to run and play on the grass.
But many children do bear the weight of what is wrong in the world. Many children have not known the security of a warm home, their own bed, grass to play on, and a stable community in which to live and worship and learn.
This was true of the transient farm workers’ children I went to school with as a young child in the late 50s and early 60s during the few years my family lived in the agricultural valleys of Central California. One town where my preacher father was the pastor of a small church, we lived in a racially mixed neighborhood of lower-middle-class, stable families. My neighborhood playmate was a little black girl. I thought nothing of her color, except maybe fascination; and when we went into her house, I remember her mother as a smiling kind lady who offered me milk and cookies.
I was about 8 when culture shock hit. We moved to a small town in the San Joaquin Valley, where 2/3 of our elementary school were black and Hispanic, many of whom were transient farmworkers’ children. I probably stood with my mouth open the day I first heard the “N” word yelled at a group of kids and then the angry commotion that resulted. I had never seen or felt a group of people, let alone kids, that seemed to throb with such vehemence that day. A busload of children almost rocked with pent-up energy; arms and hands gestured out windows; heads yelled out slang and pejoratives to others on the sidewalk. During recess, gangs ran on the edges of the big playground, and often altercations exploded between groups. The teachers had their hands full trying to control the intensity in the classrooms.
One day, Daddy drove my sister and me out to see a farm labor camp that a local farmer provided for his laborers and their families. I still remember our shock at seeing how some of our classmates lived. A semicircle of little shacks, some with cardboard patching up holes or windows. Old things sitting around. And everywhere just dirt. When it rained a big puddle formed. No grass to play on or trees to climb. No bushes or flowers anywhere. No bicycles or sidewalks to skate on.
As children, my sister and I knew nothing of activists who were even then working to improve the living conditions and wages of farmworkers. But now I look back and realize the great work done by leaders such as Mexican-American labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. I’m pretty sure some of the farmers in our church in those days weren’t happy that farm labor unions were forming, and that Chavez was organizing protests and negotiating for better contracts and laws.
Why is it that even Christian people often are slow to see such needs and embrace changes that are good for humanity? Yes, farmers were trying to make ends meet and realize a profit from their crops. Towns wanted order, not conflict. Schools wanted clean, healthy students sitting quietly at desks, ready to learn. And in the context of the Cold War, fears abounded that unions and other activist community organizations might be fronts for Marxist elements.
Life is messy. But society is only as stable and strong as its least powerful members. Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) knew this. Along with Dolores Huerta, he founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers labor union. His politics combined with Roman Catholic social teachings. He was influenced by reading about the lives of St. Francis of Assisi and Mahatma Gandhi, and others to engage in nonviolent protest.
He organized workers, led protests, hunger strikes and fasts, and formed alliances. During his public fast in 1968, he received this telegram from Martin Luther King, Jr.:
You stand today as a living example of the Gandhian tradition with its great force for social progress and its healing spiritual powers. My colleagues and I commend you for your bravery, salute you for your indefatigable work against poverty and injustice, and pray for your health and your continuing service as one of the outstanding men of America.1
Through the many years of hard work and dedication of Chavez and others, the farm workers union became a political force whose support was sought by presidential candidate John F. Kennedy as well as California gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan. When Kennedy was assassinated, Chavez served as a pallbearer at his funeral. In the 1970s he met with Pope Paul VI, who commended his activism.
Chavez was (and remains) a controversial figure. But his lifelong, tireless work on behalf of unjust conditions for farmworkers, especially Chicanos in agricultural California, has had lasting good effect. His work continues to influence activists both in ecological ethics and in keeping the focus on human dignity—and, I would add, hope for the children.
In an open letter to the grape industry amid the Grape Strike, Chavez wrote:
The men and women who have suffered and endured much and not only because of our abject poverty but because we have been kept poor. The color of our skins, the languages of our cultural and native origins, the lack of formal education, the exclusion from the democratic process, the numbers of our slain in recent wars — all these burdens generation after generation have sought to demoralize us, to break our human spirit. But God knows we are not beasts of burden, we are not agricultural implements or rented slaves, we are men. And mark this well [..] we are men locked in a death struggle against man’s inhumanity to man in the industry you represent. And this struggle itself gives meaning to our life and ennobles our dying.2
__________________________
Notes: 1 & 2 Accessed at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez
Photo Credits:
- Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin migrant workers collection (AFC 1985/001), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
- National Farm Workers Association protest buttons, Creative Commons
- CAESAR CHAVEZ, MIGRANT WORKERS UNION LEADER in 1972, public domain
- An example of housing for farmworkers and families in mid-20th century in California, public domain
Lent continues, the season is still full of possibility and promise. Are you finding ashes and desiring beauty? Now available as an online course, this virtual retreat will help you to lay out your garment of lament and put on your garment of praise. Gather your joys and release your grief with Christine Sine and Lilly Lewin! Click here for more info!
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