THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving Day followed by “Black Friday.” And now so-called “Brown Thursday” encroaching on Thanksgiving Day as well.

On Friday last week, with most media attention given to the crowds racing to get the hot deals at the stores, someone posted the following question on Facebook: “Have you taken time to be thankful for what you already had yesterday?”

One Black Friday shopping enthusiast admitted that she had no use for the item she had just purchased, but she bought it “because, who could pass up such a great deal?!?”

And, are we really thankful, or has the driving attraction to the day we commonly call “Turkey Day” become gorging ourselves with an excess of fats and sugars? According to an article in the New York Times, the average American consumes 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving Day, more than double the maximum recommended diet for the average person and this, while 1 in 8 people in the world suffer from chronic undernourishment.¹

“Brown Thursday” has been marketed to our vocabulary the last two years. Not satisfied with the income from Black Friday, one of the largest single shopping days in the entire year, retailers are now opening on Thursday. As a result, not only are people rushing away from family gatherings in order to be the first in line for the sales, but employees are now required to skip or re-arrange their Thanksgiving Day schedules in order to stock the shelves and attend to the crowds of shoppers.

We have become, it seems to me, a society defined by greed. The greed of businesses that create market pressure to transform every cultural and religious celebration into a buying spree, and the greed of all of us to have more and more stuff – whether we need it, or use it, or not.

"Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and weaker, we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom." Nelson Mandela 

I am reminded of an experience that spoke powerfully to me of society ordered to a different set of values. It took place a few days before Christmas, near my wife's hometown in Brazil. Taking an afternoon walk along a dusty, gravel road just outside of town, we happened to meet an elderly woman who remembered my wife from years earlier. She was delighted to see us and invited us to walk the short path up to her home for a visit, which we did. It was a very simple wood frame house. Just inside the front door was a small table with a bench on each side of it, bordered on the otherside by a rickety-looking old stove. There appeared to be two other rooms, separated from the main room by unpainted walls made of wood planks.

Dona Camila (we'll call her) asked us if we would accept a cup of coffee – a normal part of Brazilian hospitality. Her husband, Sr. Eduardo, was also at the table and we all sat visiting for a bit. As we sipped the sweet Brazilian demitasse, Dona Camila asked if we would accept a piece of panetone, a special kind of fruitbread specially reserved for the Christmas season. The next thing that happened is what caught my attention and is the reason this experience has stayed stayed so clear in my memory.

Dona Camila had her husband get up on a chair and reach to the very top of a tall cupboard where the panetone was stored. As he carefully brought it down and as she opened it and cut slices for each of us, it dawned on me that this was probably their panetone reserved for Christmas day, the only one they could afford. And here they were sharing it with us, these out of town guests who just happened to be walking by that day; meaning that Christmas dinner, possibly with other family there too, would be shy on this special treat.

But their gift was offered out of such apparent unconditional generosity and joy. Even remembering now, it brings tears to my eyes! Such graciousness. No hoarding or greed. Evidently no hesitancy about “what will we have for ourselves for Christmas?” Just open, selfless giving. Oh – and before we ate – they invited us to pause and give thanks!

One of the questions I have sought to reflect on and pursue in this blog is the challenge of envisioning and building a society focused on human values of the common good and community. It seems to me that our current society that places the highest value on material possession and gain is not only headed in the wrong direction, but is reaching the point where it is beginning to collapse in on itself. Around the world, the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is growing at an alarming rate. On the other hand we are seeing an increasing number of people movements – not only in other places but here in the United States as well – that are challenging this escalating discrepancy and inequality. The choice is ours. Do we choose to allow every corner of our lives to become nothing more than an response to marketing pressures and the pursuit of more and more, or is there a greater value in a society and culture of generosity, of attention to one another's needs, and of building real community? My desire is to think about and to act and live in ways that take us in this latter direction. This drive arises for me out of some of the deepest, most meaningful experiences in my life . . . like that day with Dona Camila and Sr. Eduardo. And I give thanks!

1 According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm 2013-12-01

"NEVER WILL I FORGET" SAYS THE LORD

In a week when a majority of the House of Representatives of the United States

• voted to cut $40 million from the food stamp program, that provides meals for men, women, children, and elderly who go hungry in this country every day;
• and in this same week when they voted in favor of de-funding “Obamacare” which will provide medical insurance for 44 million in this country (16% of the population) who currently have no medical coverage and for an additional 38 million who are under-insured –

the words of the Jewish writer Amos carry the same prophetic power and warning today as they did when first written nearly 3,000 years ago. In a time when Israel emphasized military security and economic affluence for the few, the prophet proclaims “This is what the Lord God says”:

“Hear this, you who trample the needy

and destroy the poor of the land . . .

You who will buy the lowly for silver

and the poor for a pair of sandals;

“The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob,

'Never will I forget a thing they have done.

'They shall fall, never to rise again.'”¹

"Finding Jesus in the poor"
(Source: http://livingthelectionary.blogspot.com
/2013/09/pentecost-18-c-amos-84-7.html)

The Jewish and Christian scriptures express over and over again that God has a particular and special interest and care for the poor. Repeatedly we see how God defends and stands up for those who have the least status in our world – the poor, victims, foreigners, the powerless, the marginalized.

And in a deep sense, who I am called to be and who I believe we are all called to be are a people who stand with our sisters and brothers, especially those who are so often left to stand alone.

Is it really too much to ask – that all be fed, that all be housed, that all have the healthcare they need? That perhaps those who have so much now may have less, so that all (not only in the United States but everywhere in the world) might enjoy the a reasonable life with dignity?  The secret is that PEOPLE, not money and power, need to be our priority and focus.

Journey Inward. Journey Outward. May our inner life inform our daily actions. May our deeply held values and priorities – even if they run counter-current to much in our world – proclaim in deeds the hope and possibility of a different kind of world.²

SHALOM!

1  Chapter 8 of Amos, the lectionary reading for today the 25^th Sunday of Ordinary Time in the Christian liturgical calendar.
2   For a wonderful little prayer based on Amos 8:4-7, see http://re-worship.blogspot.com/2013/08/prayer-amos-8-4-7.html

BOOKENDS

Bookends. Bookends may be library hardware simply propping up books, without any particular meaning other than their utility. On the other hand, some may be chosen and placed with an intention to reflect, lightly in some cases, but nevertheless to symbolize the contents of the volumes being supported. Ceramic vegetables or fruit supporting a shelf of cookbooks. Or, an example from my college days, a paired set of chimpanzees posed as “The Thinker” holding up volumes on evolutionary biology. Or, more seriously perhaps, Lady Justice seen on the barrister bookcase of an attorney's office.

Two messages came to me this week that served as reminders again of the direction and purpose of this blog, and the image that came to mind was "bookends". Bookends for living. Not simply in the sense of propping up, nor as marking only the beginning and the end of life, but symbols between which the project of living is balanced and takes place, day-by-day; the rhythm of the Ebb and the Flow, the Yin and the Yang, the Warp and the Woof, of the Journey Outward and the Journey Inward.

One of the verbal bookends received was from the author Jon Kabat-Zinn. In a chapter highlighting the value of rising early to spend time in meditation (the book's subtitle is “Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life”) Kabat-Zinn suggests: “Just waking up early to practice non-doing is itself a tempering process. It generates enough heat to rearrange our atoms, gives us a new and stronger crystal lattice of mind and body, a lattice that keeps us honest and reminds us that there is far more to life than getting things done.”¹

“Far more to life than getting things done”: A tough challenge in the world in which so many of us live. Today, where living seems to demand constant busy-ness and distraction, there is a need, a value (as in fact there has been for human beings down through millenia) to creating a rhythm in which there are regular places and times when we stop. A time to turn off the TV and the cell phone, to remove ourselves – even if only momentarily - from the kinetic pace of our lives and to enter a place of silence, to become aware, to listen to the Voice(s) within, to open ourselves to the Universe, to Mystery. Sometimes our houses of worship can be such places – perhaps at the weekly service, or at a time when we can be alone in personal prayer. Liturgical Christian worship, done well, can be such a place for me. “Practice,” as Kabat-Zinn calls meditation, is also a place where I am at times able to enter this sacred space.

The other bookend came to me from a young woman whose family attended the church I pastored on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska, in the 80s and 90s. “Cokey,” as we used to call her, was a young girl at the time. Now, graduated and a counselor and instructor at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, she posted the following powerful quote this week to her Facebook page:

"Don't speak to me about your religion; first show it to me in how you treat other people. Don't tell me how much you love your God; show me in how much you love all God's children. Don't preach to me your passion for your faith; teach me through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I'm not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as I am in how you choose to live and give.”²

Cokey's one-word comment on this quote: “Action!”

Balancing the vital call to awareness and reflection is the equally critical call to action. And, as I hope has become clear in the pages of this blog, in my view the action that we are called to is that which places us clearly on the side of justice and in solidarity with individuals and communities at the margins of society. We cannot isolate ourselves or withdraw permanently to the comfort and seeming safety of the inward journey, in whatever form. As Cory's words challenge so powerfully, hiding behind pious speech is empty, meaningless religion. In the parlance of the Christian scriptures: “If I speak with human and angelic tongues, but do not have love [i.e., do not put my values into action], I am a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”³ Living is incomplete without both the Journey Inward and the Journey Outward.

The vision and challenge I propose for myself in these pages is that life, to have meaning, to be fully lived, must take place within this stretch and balance. And it is my hope that these thoughts-put-to-word may be fodder for your own grappling with living as well. Not all activity or action. Not all withdrawal or reflection. But a moving between, spending time in each plane. Journeying deeply into both, and engaging the journey from one to the other as well. That awareness may inform and lead to wise action, and that focused, intentional activity may in turn inform and lead to deeper, connected meditation.

1  Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life (New York: Hyperon, 1994), 180-181.

2  Attributed to Cory Booker - Mayor of Newark, NJ and currently Democratic Candidate for Senate from the State of New Jersey.

3  I Corinthians 13:1

BAREFOOT THROUGH THE AMAZON

Following up on my most recent post and continuing the theme of place and the sacred, this time I share a passage from another writer. I was introduced recently, by a friend studying the songs and language of monkeys in the jungles of Bolivia¹, to the book Barefoot Through the Amazon: On the Path of Evolution. The author, Marc Van Roosmalen, is a field biologist studying the habits of the red-faced black spider monkeys in the interior of Suriname. Spending weeks at a time alone at his remote and densely jungled study site, in the following passage he describes the view and his reflection in the late afternoons, perched 200 meters above the forest floor atop a butte called the Voltzberg dome. As an acute scientific observer of the habitat and wildlife, I am drawn to his detailed description of the place and its inhabitants. But in relationship to my blog, what also intrigues me is his meditative reflection. Although a man more of science than of religion, he shares openly a sense of the spiritual that arises within him in connection with this place.

“At the start of each session,” he writes, “I used to climb the Voltzberg dome in the late afternoon. It was a hike of about forty minutes from my camp situated at the edge of the granite flat. It was an excellent, easy and above all pleasant way to find out the latest news on the whereabouts of my study objects, the spider monkeys . . .. I was surrounded by pristine upland rainforest stretching out to far beyond the horizon where no human soul was to be found.

“These were sacred moments. Closing my eyes, I can still recall them in full detail. The stunningly beautiful sunset sky. Pairs of macaws heading for a distant lodge tree while keeping loud and animated conversations. Melancholic songs of tinamous and quails sitting somewhere on the bottom of the rainforest. Choirs of all kinds of frogs, flocks of parakeets and parrots having a last quick feed flying from one fruiting tree to another, squabbling squirrel monkeys invisible inside the tangles of liana forest down there or climbing up the south side of the Voltzberg to find a safe sleeping site close to where I was sitting. The roars and grunts of jaguars on the hunt, red howler monkeys howling alternately from almost all directions and at all distances, fat black granite lizards foraging for insects at the steep edges of the abysses around me, beset with wild pine-apple bromeliads and globose, blue- and purple-flowering cacti (genus Cleistocactus).

“The ideal temperature and the cool breeze, the divine perfumes of flowering terrestrial orchids, bromeliads and other plants, the late-afternoon nectar feeding bouts of all kinds of hummingbirds. The other 'inselbergs' visible in the far distance . . .. The spider-monkey long calls carrying miles away across the canopy emitted as they were from the tip of up to sixty meters tall emergent trees. This was true paradise for the well-behaved human.

“Sitting there, I could not help starting to contemplate, to meditate, to retrospect my life and that of others, to philosophize about nature, evolution, and, in particular, the ascent of man. What makes us think to be superior over the other creatures or even to be supernatural? What purpose or meaning life may have? What significance does it have or could it have? What difference is there between me, sitting there overlooking the world and the creatures around me – as we are all subdued to the same laws of nature that apply also to me? What would value me, a human being, more than for instance a monkey for I would have to face death in the same way as a monkey would after breaking a leg or so? I questions if there is room for any supernatural being if not Nature itself. Humbled by Nature, I came close to a profound religious experience, teaching me the lesson never to forget how precious life is, a unique one-time event that can instantly be broken off by mere bad luck when being at the wrong place at the wrong moment. The ethics and principles that guide me through life are strongly rooted in those days' profound and intimate contact with a pristine, ancient, millions of years of evolution breathing natural environment. It would be a perfect therapy for people all over the world – in particular those living in crowded concrete mega-cities totally out of touch with Nature – to come to this place and experience the work of Nature or God without any hint to or a 'helping hand' from our own species, Homo sapiens.” (Barefoot Through the Amazon, Kindle edition location 460 - 497)

1 A friend from Chicago days, Patrice Adret is currently a researcher at  Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado. You can learn more about Patrice and his work, and view his videos by friending him at https://www.facebook.com/patrice.adret?fref=ts.

GEOGRAPHY AND THE SENSE OF THE SACRED

Roman Catholic Cathedral in the central plaza of 

      Cuiabá, ca. 1967

The connection between place and the sense of the sacred has intrigued me for a long time. I remember, even as a child – a child raised in a fundamentalist missionary home that rejected Catholic Christianity, being drawn to the sense of mystery that emanated from the large though simple Catholic Cathedral facing the central plaza in the city of Cuiabá (Mato Grosso state, Brazil).

Within my own faith experience as an adult and as a student of religion, I have reflected on the apparently easier or more likely access to the numinous that characterizes certain places. On the other hand I have concluded that it is not just about the place but about the perceiver as well.

Anthropologists tell us that the geography in which people live influences significantly how they perceive the spiritual or divine.¹ They say that Spirit/deity tends to be more localized and specific for people who live in a closed microcosm such as a dense forest. I suspect this may apply to folks living in more dense urban surroundings as well. By contrast, for people who live in an open microcosm such as grasslands or mountain environments with vistas, the spiritual/deity is perceived as being more expansive, transcendent.

My own sense of Spirit has roots in this latter perspective of an unobstructed geography. Growing up in the open grasslands of the Brazilian cerrado, a core part of my sense of the numinous is connected to grand vistas.

Following dirt paths west through the knee-high grasses and scrub trees of the region where I grew up, as young boys my brother, friends, and I would hike to a flat-topped butte² about 5 miles from our home. Reaching its base, we would begin the ascent, picking (and at times slipping) our way across ever-steeper graveled slopes, around ragged boulders, scrub, and an occasional cactus, slowly making our way to the very top. While the open plains of the cerrado already offer an expansive view with broad horizons, the vista several hundred feet higher, from the top of our butte, was even grander.

View of the Brazilian cerrado of central Mato Grosso State

From this elevated vantage point, the savanna-type landscape dotted by trees and shrubs extended across the rolling terrain in every direction, as far as the eye could see. In the rainy season, the canvass of multiple shades of green would be decorated with bright yellow, purple, white, and red clusters of flowering trees as well. Etched on this expanse, like lines on a gigantic human palm, was a clearly defined network of winding dark green paths, gallery forests revealing the course of streams and rivers. Springs and narrow rivulets gathering water from the highlands in the south joined larger streams that eventually dumped into rivers, all of which in this region flowed north to pour their precious liquid contents into the Xingu, a major tributary of the Great Amazon. From the top of our butte, looking out above and beyond the grasses and trees, we could see in every direction the shaded blues and lavenders of distant hills that gave shape to the horizon. Allowing our gaze to rise further, we could follow the brilliant curved expanse of the sky, looking much like a giant sapphire bowl set upside-down upon the earth. In the rainy season towering cottony clouds – of the type that provide the imagination with images of faces, monsters, and castles -- played across this glorious stage. And when these billowy giants released their torrents, you could watch grey-white sheets of rain race their way across miles of grassland, offering their cool and quenching drench to all in their path. At night the deep blue would give way to a pitch black canopy awash in an unfathomable number of pinpoints of flickering light, further brightened, at times, by the cool glow of a magnificent moon.

Like the trees and grasses in these youthful memories, in a very deep sense, who I am - my very being - is rooted in this sprawling cerrado soil. In one sense this is literally true, as I was physically nourished for much of the first fifteen years of my life by food nurtured in this soil. But in another sense this is where I am rooted spiritually as well. As I shared in an earlier post, this place is for me, like no other place, truly home. But more than that, it is the lens through which my world is framed. The rugged simplicity of the land and its inhabitants, the dependability of natural cycles of death and re-birth, skills for survival in what at times could be a harsh and threatening environment, the value and beauty of the earth and its creatures, the sense of a big-sky/big-earth God whose reach is over-arching yet tender: these are the memories and visions that form the core of who I am. I, David Crump, am spiritually rooted in this land known as the Brazilian cerrado.

1 The thoughts shared here are based on a class in African Traditional Religions taught by Dr. Anthony Gittins, C.S.Sp., Professor of Theology and Cultural Anthropology, Catholic Theological Union. Theologian, Belden Lane, speaks of the “intersection of faith and geography” in his Landscapes of the Sacred, New York: Paulist Press, 1988 (p. 74).

2 Such buttes are common formations of the cerrado terrain and plateau country covering much of central Brazil.

IF WE MUST DIE - REMEMBERING TREYVON

On February 26, 2012, an unarmed African American teenager, Treyvon Martin, was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida by George Zimmerman, a multi-racial Hispanic American neighborhood watch coordinator.  Although he had been instructed by the police not to follow the boy, Zimmerman persisted.  In a subsequent scuffle, the details of which are not clear, Treyvon was shot at close range and killed.  Zimmerman claims he shot the unarmed teen in self-defense.^* 

The trial has been taking place over the last few weeks.  Yesterday evening Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges, by a jury of his peers.  Truly a sad day in my view for this nation, the United States.

A friend of mine posted the following poem on Facebook which for me fits perfectly. At times like these it is often images and poetry that get closest to expressing the rage we may feel while at the same time holding forth our undying commitment to fighting on 'til the victory is won.

If We Must Die

If we must die, let it not be like hogs 

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, 

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die, 

So that our precious blood may not be shed in vain;

Then even the monsters we defy shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! 

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, 

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! 

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

                                      ~ By Claude McKay ~

*An additional debate has been sparked by this case about Florida's Stand Your Ground law which states that a person may justifiably use force in self-defense when there is reasonable belief of an unlawful threat.    

ORIGIN OF FIRE: A XAVANTE SENSE OF PLACE

According to legend, the original ancestor of the Xavante people, the first human being,¹ was known as Aiwamdzú. It is said that he “came out of the earth” in the east, “by the Ȩ Wawẽ ,”² the “big water,” perhaps a reference to the Atlantic ocean. It is possible that the territory roamed by the Xavante people may have at one time extended all the way to the coast. However, shortly after the arrival of Europeans in the Sixteenth Century it seems they began moving west, by the mid-nineteenth century coming to occupy areas between the Rio das Mortes on the east and the Batovi River (one of the tributaries of the Xingu) on the west.³ This region is part of a savanna-type biome found primarily in the large plateau area of central Brazil, the largest savanna in South America (1.8 million km² ) and biologically the richest savanna in the world.

This landscape, known as the Brazilian cerrado, is sacred to the Xavante. This is the space in which their mythic tales⁴ of creation and transformation are played out. “The Origin of Fire” (Hu'u Nhib'unhama Wasu'u) is one of the most commonly told. Set within the cultural context of a conflict between a man and his brother-in-law, the brother-in-law is eventually rescued by an old Xavante man who appears in the form of a jaguar. During this mythic time, Jaguar was the only being who had fire and used the fire to cook food. The young man spent a long period of time with Jaguar and learned about fire and its use. When he is finally sent back to his village, he is instructed by Jaguar not to say anything about the fire but rather to say that the meat he carries back with him was cooked on a hot flat rock. Although promising to do as he is told, he hides a piece of charcoal in the meat he is given to take back to his people. Upon arriving back in the village someone discovers the charcoal and he eventually divulges the mystery of fire. It is decided by the people that they too must have fire.

One after another, members of the community offer themselves to go and steal the fire from Jaguar. The first says that he will go as a tapir. The next says he that he will go as the large cervo deer, and the next as the smaller pampa deer. Another said he would go as the ostrich-like emu, and still another as a paca, a large rodent. Others volunteered, each offering to take the form of a specific animal. In each case the offer was, tongue in cheek, turned down. In typical Xavante style, humor was poked at some typical characteristic of each animal thus disqualifying them for the task. The tapir would be too noisy, the large deer was said to be awkward, and the small deer always runs with its head down. The emu runs with his wings stuck way out, and the paca never ventures far from the riverbank. In the end though, a sort of relay team is agreed to and together they succeed in stealing the fire from Jaguar. “This is how it was a long time ago, when the people carried off the fire,” the story concludes. And “they sent around the coals to all the people, so that now all of them could become possessors of fire too.” As a consequence however, it is explained that because the young man did not live up to his word to keep the secret of the fire, from that day forward Jaguar will always be very mean, a enemy to humans.⁵

Anyone who has lived for a time among the Xavante people will recognize multiple layers of Xavante culture reflected in this story. The humor, poking of fun, and a kind of light-hearted dishonesty/tricking that is woven throughout the narrative is typical of the Xavante style of relating. Culturally appropriate dynamics of interaction between family members, those related by marriage, and even the adoption of a relative are also clearly present in the story.

On the other hand, in this and other Xavante stories of creation, it is clear as well that the mythic/sacred landscape on which they play out is clearly the Brazilian cerrado. All the animals in the story of the Origin of Fire, for example are not only scientifically identified fauna of the cerrado but fully recognizable in the familiar and humorous descriptions given of their appearance and behavior. The contours of the land – rivers, rocky cliffs, reference to trees but not to forest, all of this – is characteristic of the cerrado landscape as well. This land, for the Xavante, is where they emerged as  A'uwẽ, the real human beings. It is this space that their ancestors trekked, the land that sustained them as a people for centuries and perhaps millennia.

Today this traditional land of the Xavante (and other indigenous groups) is over-run with huge cattle ranches, soy fields that extend as far as the eye can see, roads, highways, and towns. Federally recognized tribal territories are continuously under pressure from outside economic interests. And the land that is left is no longer sufficient to sustain the flora and fauna of their traditional way of life. The continued existence of the cerrado biome is itself in question!

Interviewed in 2009, Cipassé Xavante, contemporary leader of the Wederã community in the western part of Xavante terrirtory raised this warning and plea: “Few people understand the Cerrado the way we (the Xavante people) do; we have a special relationship to it and care deeply for it. Really the whole world has a responsibility to the Cerrado. Climate change is happening in Brazil, Africa, and Asia. It is all connected.

“The world has always existed. Human beings were created, but the world – the water, the sky, and the land – have always existed. It is humanity who will disappear if we don't take care. This is my message. This is why it is important to support the Cerrado peoples' fight.”⁶

----------------------------------

1  As I explain in an earlier post, the term Xavante (pronounced Shah-vahn-tee) is a name given by early European settlers/explorers. Their own name for themselves is a’uwẽ, “the people,” or a’uwẽ uptabi, “the real or authentic people.”

2  The most comprehensive anthropological study of the Xavante culture is David Maybury-Lewis' Akwe Shavante Society. See pp. 284-292 for a brief overview of Xavante cosmology.

3  For a short account of this history, see Laura R. Graham, Performing Dreams, Second Edition. (Tucson, Arizona: Fenestra Books, 2003), 25-37.

4  I use the term myth not to suggest that the story is somehow fantastic or unbelieveable. Rather, I understand myth as narratives whose importance and truth are discovered not in a literal reading but through a creative exploration of the images and symbolism used.

5  This story with all of its rich detail is available in the Xavante language with an English translation as a downloadable PDF document at http://www-01.sil.org/americas/brasil/publcns/anthro/EnglXVLg.pdf . Accessed 07/04/2013.

6  http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/brazil/saving-cerrado. Accessed 07/04/2013 Interview by Laura R. Graham, Professor of Anthropology, University of Iowa.

A SENSE OF PLACE

I have been thinking lately about place and the sense or meaning of place. I remember a few years ago returning to the Xavante village in Brazil where I grew up and, more specifically, to the little plot of land that I called "home" most of those growing up years. While everything was changed, there were still “landmarks” left of the places I remembered. Large rocks still outlined the foundation of what we called the “old house.” On the space that had been the house where we lived, the only thing left was the cracked remains of cement and brick floors. Hidden within an area now overgrown by shrubs was the thick concrete slab where the gas-engine-powered washing machine once sat. Most amazing were the

A pool in the stream that ran near our home
 had been changed little by the passage of time

mango trees still alive and laid out in the same pattern that I remember from my childhood, their now thick, gnarled trunks providing stately witness to the decades that had passed. And in a wooded area just beyond what had been our yard I found, much to my surprise, the rounded moss-covered rock basin, part of a stream bed, looking very much the way I remembered it. Crystal clear water still moved gently through this space, meandering its way to the flow of the Batovi River, a half mile away.

Returning to this place, now in so many ways changed, I remember observing, exploring, seeking out, noting, every detail and delighting in each lingering hint that reminded me of the way things had once been. In my mind I mapped it out, measuring distances and re-creating each item that had been – houses, trails, the corral, the depression marking what had once been the outhouse, a palm tree no longer there. . .  I felt a sadness, a longing and nostalgia (in Portuguese saudades) for what had been, and yet at the same time there was a sense of calm connectedness, of being in the place where I belong. The feeling of the dry cerrado¹ air; familiar aromas – some sweet, some pungent - of the trees, grasses, and flowers, and of the damp earth along the stream bed; the whispered gurgle of the water; the feel of the hard-packed clay soil and gravel under my feet; the distant call of a lone seriema and the shrill chorus of cicadas. I noted and recognized each one, and it was as if I had never left. I had been away for so long, I have traveled and experienced and lived in so many different places, yet in a sense that is not true of any of those other places, this place is for me home.

My thoughts shift to recent news stories of numerous indigenous groups in Brazil re-claiming, fighting and even now in the 21^st Century dying for land that has been home to their peoples not for one life time but for generations, centuries, millennia. Driven by land, lumber, agricultural – and finally at the base of all money – interests, entire peoples and cultures have been and still are threatened and too often forced from their land. In the case of the Xavante of Mariawatsede in eastern Mato Grosso state, their land was sold right out from under them more than 20 years ago and the entire tribe was flown out by the Brazilian Air Force to be “dumped” at a religious mission. Now, finally, after years of legal and political confrontation, just this year the tribe gained right and ownership to this their land, their place, once again. Other cases in recent months have involved Native Brazilians who, tired of waiting on the empty or bureaucratically delayed promises of government officials have taken things into their own hands and invaded and re-claimed their people's traditional lands. There are also those fighting the construction of enormous hydro-electric projects that if completed would submerge whole villages, resulting in profound changes to both the natural environment as well as ways of life, forcing entire peoples to leave their place. Most famous of these, for the international attention it has gained, is the Brazilian government's Belo Monte dam.

I remember back to my years among the Winnebago People, the Ho Chunk, as well. Although living on designated reservation lands in north-eastern Nebraska for over a century, their sense of home, of belonging is still attached to the land and forests and lakes of central Wisconsin, the millenial homeland that their people had been driven from in the mid-1800s. Over the intervening decades many have actually left the reservation to move back to these ancestral lands.

This sense of place that carries the attachment that we call home, where we feel that we truly belong, runs deep in us as human beings.² It is a multivalent perception of place/space in all of its dimensions and details. We know it by sight, smell, sound, texture, even taste. Perhaps a fusion of the senses . . . and something more, it takes us to a deeper level of human knowing. Felt as a longing/yearning when we are absent, it is replaced by a settled calm and knowing that we are at home, that we belong when we are in that place.

______________________________

1The savannah-like biome that occupies much of the plateau region of central Brazil.

2For a helpful brief reflection on this human sense of place, see the blog post on Wendell Berry's “Story of an Old Bucket” at http://anothernathanmyers.com/2011/06/04/wendell-berry-a-story-of-an-old-bucket-and-a-sense-of-place/ , viewed online 06/22/2013.

The World is About to Turn

Before going to church today, I happened to watch part of a recorded show of country singer Willie Nelson. One of the songs he sang – which he called “gospel,” but which I would say is more blues – has the repeated refrain: “Satan, your kingdom must come down. I heard the voice of Jesus say: 'Satan, your kingdom must come down.'”

“I'm gonna pray,” it continues, “until they tear your kingdom down. . .

“Gonna shout until they tear your kingdom down. . .

“Satan, your kingdom must com down. I heard the voice of Jesus say: 'Satan, your kingdom must come down.'”

Satan is, of course, the mythical personifying of evil and his kingdom is the reality and impact of evil as it is expressed and manifested in our world. Listening to Nelson, I was reminded of our call as people of faith, to confront the evil of division and war, of poverty and discrimination, of violence between human beings and violence against the earth. And I identified with the call to the outward journey, the call to act in ways that contribute to tearing that kingdom down.

At church, this Sunday before Easter, the congregation heard and shared once again readings known as “The Passion.” The story moves from Jesus' last supper with his disciples, to his withdrawal and prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, to his arrest, trial, death and burial. But what especially caught my attention this Sunday was Jesus' response when Judas and the temple guards came to arrest him. “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs?” he asks. “Day after day I was with you in the temple area, and you did not seize me!”

But then came the critical phrase: “But this is your hour,” he continued, “the time for the power of darkness.” And I remembered Willie Nelson's song. And it struck me that there are times when it seems that Satan and his kingdom are winning the game. I sometimes feel this way when I hear some of the absurd arguments given as reasons to own guns; or when I reflect on the costs financially and in lives of the last decade-plus of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and as if that were not enough, the madness of our politicians' sable rattling about conflict with Iran or North Korea; or when I hear the proposals of the super wealthy to further consolidate their place of absolute power and wealth, regardless of the cost to society and the rest of humanity; or when I think of mothers and fathers and children suffering the abuse and pain of desperate poverty with apparently little hope of escape. Jesus was about to die. And in these ways and in so many other ways in our world today, he continues to be put to death and to die. And it appears that it is indeed Satan's hour, the time for the power of darkness to reign.

But even in the darkest hour, we must not give in or give up. Through the journey inward we discover the foundation and promise for something better. Faith demands that we act, that we give of ourselves in the confidence that a more just world is possible - a hope that is  beautifully expressed in the Canticle of the Turning. Its chorus goes like this:

“My heart shall sing of the day you bring,

Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears for the dawn draws near,

and the world is about to turn!”

IMAGINE!

Paul David Hewson, better known as Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2, is quoted as saying that “faith in Jesus Christ that is not aligned with social justice . . . is nothing.”¹ While this is not what we hear in most Christian communities today, I think Bono got it right. This is in fact a central theme not only in Jesus' life but in much of the prophetic tradition of Judaism as well.²

In the fourth chapter of Luke's Gospel (vss.14-22) we see Jesus announcing what today might be called the purpose or mission statement for his life and ministry. Among his own friends and family, in his hometown synagogue, he draws upon his Jewish tradition in the words of the great prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

What follows in this passage makes it clear that, for Luke, these words are fulfilled in Jesus. This is the meaning and focus of the ministry he formally announces to his compatriots that day.

And, if we hear these words within the rich context of their Jewish setting, we understand that what is being said here is that wrong will be made right. The focus is on those who struggle, the stereotyped and disregarded, the ones residing at the margins of society. It is a message of hope for people living in poverty, a declaration of physical healing (which also meant social and communal restoration) for those crippled (and ostracized) because of sickness, and a promise of liberation for all imprisoned by chains of unfairness and injustice.

The Jesus of Matthew's Gospel (chpt. 25, vss. 31 - 46) announces a similar commitment, identifying that the focus of his ministry (and thus also the mission priority for those who would be his followers) are the hungry and thirsty, strangers and immigrants, those so poor that they cannot afford to clothe themselves, the ill, and people who are in prison.

This is a message about caring, but what Jesus announces and calls humanity to here is much more. At the core, his message is about total transformation. Good news for the poor means an end to the insecurity and lack that is poverty. In Jesus' day, sickness was often interpreted as a sign of sin and so resulted in social stigma, in those ill becoming outcasts. Thus, what Jesus announces is not only physical caring and healing, but a social and spiritual healing that includes family reunification and people regaining a place of acceptance and participation once again in the life of the community. In the final phrase from Isaiah, his message calls for a world in which there is no discrimination, unfairness, abuse, a world emptied of all forms of injustice and oppression.

Evangelical missionary and biblical scholar, Thomas Hanks, offers an excellent study on the biblical theme of oppression.³ Within this perspective, poverty is not due to individual inability or laziness (as we so often hear). Rather it is a consequence of the economic and power structures operative within society. “According to biblical theology,” he writes, “the main cause of poverty is oppression.”⁴

I heard a story on the news recently about a new industrial park being built in Haiti, using government and private aid dollars donated after the 2010 earthquake.⁵ It announced the hope of jobs and an improved economy for the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. My initial reaction was that this was good news for the people of Haiti, an exemplary use of tax dollars and donations from caring people around the world. But then the story continued. The typical salary paid workers is between $5 and $7 a day! “Not enough to live on,” according to one worker interviewed. After transportation costs and meals, most people's daily take-home is between $1 and $2! Haiti's own government spokesman admits this will not be sufficient to pull people out of poverty. “But it's better than no job at all,” he offers.  

And who benefits from this investment in infrastructure – my tax dollars, your tax dollars and donations? The multi-national corporations and companies who employ these workers! And, in fact, I do too – when those starvation wages make it possible for me to buy products at a much lower cost. One of the companies at the park makes t-shirts that will be sold for $7 at Walmart stores in the U.S. To buy one of these t-shirts him or herself, a Haitian worker would have to spend most of one week's take-home pay! Imagine – for a t-shirt!! The cause of poverty is oppression!  Get it?

This story is just an example, because it is repeated in a million ways and places. In the United States we know that the number of people living in poverty here is on the rise. And poverty is no stranger in other places either. According to a recent report,⁶ “80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day!” “The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income!” “22,000 children die each day due to poverty!” The statistics go on, and on.

And in facing this world, what do we do? What are we called to do? If we would be followers of Jesus – and I would broaden this to say -- if we are to be people of faith, who believe in the value of each human being and in a loving higher power, then we must be scandalized by the reality we face. We must be challenged to imagine and to give ourselves to creating a different kind of world. We are called to dedicate our efforts and strength to living justice, to building a world in which there is no discrimination, unfairness, abuse, a world emptied of all forms of injustice. Imagine!!

1 Quoted in the excellent online article “Bono as Person of Faith” at http://www.david-kilgour.com/mp/Bono%20as%20Person%20of%20Faith.htm#_edn55

2 Modern biblical scholarship argues that Jesus should be understood within the prophetic tradition. See Donald J. Georgen, O.P., The Mission and Ministry of Jesus. A Theology of Jesus Series, Vol 1. (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1986), pp. 146 – 176. Also Marcus J. Borg, Jesus A New Vision: Spirit, Culture and The Life of Discipleship. (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1987), pp. 150 – 171.

3 Thomas D. Hanks, God so Loved the Third World. (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1983).

4 Ibid. p. 59. Emphasis added.

5 http://www.northernpublicradio.org/post/will-made-haiti-factories-improve-life-haiti 2013-02-15

6 http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats#src1 (last updated January 7, 2013)