Justice

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“Fondly Do We Hope”

I remember well the first time I ever saw my Dad cry — I had been pestering him with my childish naiveté to tell me about life during the Great Depression. Even up to her death just shy of 98, Mom would euphemistically recall those first years of their marriage as “Those Dirty Thirties.”  Our nation has faced tough times before.

Our nation has serious issues to address today. Our political process sputters just above dysfunctional.  The verb “to govern” seems to have disappeared from our lexicon, leaving us with politicians rather than leaders. Yet, we should worry about our rabidly anti-government rhetoric poisoning — perhaps precluding — the formation of a needed and healthy patriotism among our children.

How do we purge the nastiness that has taken hold of our national character? We retreat to isolated enclaves in defense of the solitary rights of private citizens, forsaking the solidarity of common citizenship. Like spoiled children we obsess about individual rights rather than accepting personal responsibility for self and others. With narcissism cloaked in the rhetoric of Ayn Rand we facilely assert “freedom from…” leaving “freedom for…” holed up in the National Archives.

Yes, our nation has faced tough times before. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated hardly more than a month after delivering his Second Inaugural Address. Perhaps his concluding words are as fitting for us on this Fourth of July as they were when he first spoke them to a war-weary nation:

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

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Musings of An Old Fogie

Too many elders become cynical and fearful as they observe inevitable change occurring within a dynamic culture. I never want to be like that or be dismissed as an “old fogie”. However, I must confess deep concern, worry and skepticism about where our country is headed.

This past weekend we had a terrific weekend at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI centered on the Junior Recital of an extraordinarily gifted young woman. Meeting Elena’s friends was delightful and reason for great hope.

This same weekend a grand-niece was graduating from San Diego State. Yes, amid all the wild fires – only most recent evidence of the climate change which is dramatically transforming what had been considered one of the earth’s most ideal climates. My nephew reported that temps were near 100 in a region where most homes haven’t bothered with air conditioning.

I desperately do not want to be an “old fogie” trapped in fear and cynicism. I am determined to remain hopeful, happy and optimistic. How are we to live with the tension, the very concrete evidence that gives reason for serious concern for our children’s future?

If ever there was a time, we are in need of dusting off what have classically been called the Cardinal Virtues: prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude! Only these seem an adequate antidote to the worry and skepticism even a casual look at “reality” would generate.

A case in point comes from a bastion of conservative American culture, The Wall Street Journal: The class of 2014 is holds a very dubious and discouraging distinction. They’re the most indebted class ever. [link]

The average graduate with student-loan debt leaves with an obligation of $33,000 they need to pay back. Even after adjusting for inflation that’s nearly double the amount borrowers had to pay back 20 years ago. A little over 70% of this year’s bachelor’s degree recipients are leaving school with student loans, up from less than half of graduates in the Class of 1994.

Apparently wanting to avoid the old fogie moniker as well, The Wall Street Journal reports: “The good news for the Class of 2014 is that they likely won’t hold the title of Most Indebted Ever very long. Just as they took it over from the Class of 2013, the Class of 2015 will probably take it from them.”

The Cardinal Virtues were initially articulated by Plato in The Republic and expanded by Cicero. Christianity picked up on them through Ambrose, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The term “cardinal” comes from the Latin cardo or hinge; these virtues are considered cardinal because they are the basic virtues required for a virtuous civic life.

This old fogie cannot help but look around and be concerned about some pretty significant fraying in America’s “social contract” around civic virtues such as prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. Perhaps this is what The Wall Street Journal sees as well.

Never having been accused of being “conservative”, I cannot help but think of the Preamble to our Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I worry – in fairness – whether we are passing on what we old fogies received.

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Until Death Do Us Part!

The botched execution in Oklahoma, in conjunction with a conservative estimate that 4% of current death row inmates are innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted [link], should ignite moral outrage. I am grateful to live in a state that does not resort to the death penalty. And, I’d be proud to compare Minnesota crime rates – or any state that does not impose the death sentence – with states that do at any time!

Sadly, nothing is likely to change. Too many seek revenge and retribution and tenaciously hold to disproven beliefs that the death sentence serves as a deterrence – it doesn’t! All it does is to give expression to a vindictive impulse within a fearful populace.

I admit personal interest in the topic – my cousin’s son Peter was sentenced to death for a contract murder I have no doubt he carried out. Only a minor fluke in Constitutional Law enabled his sentence – begrudgingly by Nebraska legal officials I might add – to be commuted to life in prison. My previous post on this topic is available [here].

Yet, with a persistent and perennial hope that things can actually change, that societies like individuals can mature and become more enlightened, I dust off “Ten Reasons to Oppose the Death Penalty” first published in 1982. Perhaps something in Mary Meehan’s collection of arguments will provide the tipping point for America to finally claim some civility and sanity in our execution of justice. 

1. There is no way to remedy the occasional mistake. 

2. There is racial and economic discrimination in application of the death penalty. 

3. Application of the death penalty tends to be arbitrary and capricious; for similar crimes, some are sentenced to death while others are not. 

4. The death penalty gives some of the worst offenders publicity that they do not deserve.  

5. The death penalty involves medical doctors, who are sworn to preserve life, in the act of killing. 

6. Executions have a corrupting effect on the public. 

7. The death penalty cannot be limited to the worst cases.

8. The death penalty is an expression of the absolute power of the state; abolition of that penalty is a much- needed limit on government power. 

9. There are strong religious reasons for many to oppose the death penalty. 

10. Even the guilty have a right to life.

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You may read Mary Meehan’s 1982 article in it entirety [here].

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“Graciousness Draping the World”

Admittedly, recent postings here have been challenging and intense. My consistent motivation remains – to stimulate awareness and action. My conviction is that no one of us can do everything, but we all must do something!  It’s as simple as “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I also believe in the cliché, “You can only do what you can do”…  as long as it is not a cop-out!

Favorite nephews and nieces come to mind… they are building careers, serving communities, committed to marriages, raising kids. Their generosity and dedication inspire me. In them I learn just how challenging it is in our culture to introduce the verb, “to share” into the vocabulary of young children. Courage! Keep it up! You can only do what you can do! But in doing so you are your children’s first and best teachers about loving God and loving others.   Good job!

Today my heart is sick over the 326 young girls kidnapped on April 15 in northern Nigeria. They were taken by armed terrorists from their boarding school because “western education is a sin.” Fifty girls have escaped. Reports indicate the others are being auctioned off for $12 each to become “wives” of militants.

But there is something known as “compassion fatigue”! We can only do what we can do. We can only care so much until we burn out.  But if you are not yet aware of this horror playing out in the lives of these young girls, I ask that you at least take a look at Nicholas Kristof’s compelling report [here].

Today is Sunday, a day for Sabbath rest. It’s a good day to remember the fullness of the love command – Love your neighbor as yourself! In that spirit I share something that has long been a favorite of mine. Take a rest. Enjoy your day! Show some well-deserved love for yourself. Take care of tomorrow, tomorrow… 

I think we who work for justice and come face to face regularly with its negation are at risk of losing that which animates all healthy beings: the capacity to respond to the graciousness draping the world in colors vivid and electric, the warmth of the sun, a lover’s touch. If we neglect to notice these, why attend to anything else?  

E.B. White said, “Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. That makes it hard to plan the day.” But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first. 

Shortly before he died, [the noted Nigerian environmentalist and human rights activist] Ken Saro-Wiwa wrote from prison to a friend: “I’m in good spirits. … There is no doubt that my idea will succeed in time, but I’ll have to bear the pain of the moment. … I’m mentally prepared for the worst but hopeful for the best. I think I have the moral victory.”  

He did, of course, but he also lost his life in its pursuit. Think of that and weep, but then take the hand of a child, beam over a rose and shout praises to the stars. And then begin again. Begin again. No better tribute could there be to all that is right and proud and free. 

— William F. Schulz, Former Executive Director, Amnesty Internatoinal

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Each Child: A Reason for Hope

The birth of a child is such reason for hope. The occasion brings joy and conjures dreams about what this child might become. This is true the world over!

One of the biggest new ideas in international development comes from economists, academics, doctors, politicians, and aid workers. There appears to be a broadening convergence of evidence confirming the profound ways in which proper nutrition in the earliest years of life influences a person’s ability to grow, learn, and work.

The 1,000-day period from the beginning of pregnancy to a child’s second birthday will largely determine your child’s health, ability to learn in school and perform at a future job. It all seems so obvious… proper nutrition for the mother and child, as well as good sanitation and personal hygiene, are vital to prevent stunting of the body and brain.

For years, ensuring good nutrition during the first 1,000 days was largely absent from national and global development priorities. Efforts to improve young lives and brighten future prospects focused on getting children into school. It has been in primary schools where interventions related to childhood nutrition usually begin.

Yes, global resolve and cooperation are essential. But all is not dependent on governments and creating new bureaucracies. Much is already within reach of families and villages. Farming needs to be diversified by growing more nutrient-rich crops for household consumption. Homes need to maintain clean living environments. Culturally ingrained behaviors such as women eating last at mealtime even when they are pregnant or breastfeeding must be challenged and changed.

In 2012 some of the world’s leading economists and development specialists gathered to consider a question: If they had an extra $75 billion to improve the state of the world, which problem would they solve first? The group declared that investments to eliminate hunger and malnutrition would do the world the greatest good. It found that improving child nutrition was also the most cost-effective intervention, with a return on investment of at least 30 to 1.

In essence, malnutrition keeps poor countries poor. This is true in the United States as well. We are beginning to acknowledge connections between poor nutrition in the 1,000 days and poor school performance, as well as increasing rates of obesity and diabetes.

When he hosted a Scaling Up Nutrition summit in 2012, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel estimated that as many as 500,000 of the city’s citizens could be living in “food deserts” without nearby access to affordable vegetables, meat, and fresh fruits, leading to unhealthy diets centered on cheaper junk food and readily available fast food.

It is in these 1,000 days where so many of America’s social problems begin: failing health, failing students and schools, a weakened labor force and high crime rates. What might a single child have contributed to the world had he or she not been stunted during the first 1,000 days?

Every child is a reason for hope.  Each looks to us to be nourished and nurtured.  What are we to do?

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I am indebted to Roger Thurow’s brilliant article in the May 2014 issue of The Atlantic for this information. I encourage everyone to read his entire report [here].

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Mercy, Mercy!

Imagine my delight! A long-awaited book has finally arrived. I was quite aware of the block-buster frenzy its release made in 2013. But that was in German and I had to await its release in English. Well, it arrived this weekend!

The book is Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life by Walter Kasper who served as president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity from 2001-2010. Warning: you will likely be reading more about this book on this blog in the weeks ahead.

Regulars recall my reveling in the linguistic connection between the Hebrew words for mercy and womb. They come from the same root. Those who know Hebrew would immediately catch the connection between God’s mercy and the “womb love” of a mother.

Not having that cognate in English, this understanding and appreciation is lost on many of us. We Anglo-Saxon English-speakers can easily apply juridical connotations when we speak of mercy – unwarranted forgiveness, commutation of punishment due us, sheer gratuity from a just authority. Yes, that’s a part of mercy! But think of how much we miss if translations fail to convey the fullness of meaning.

Well, folks, imagine my delight when the translator’s preface to Kasper’s Mercy makes the very same point – but not in relation to Hebrew but in terms of German. Please bear with a few technicalities… it’s important!

Kasper uses the German words barmherzigkeit and erbarmen to describe God’s “merciful” attitudes and actions.  Here’s the point… the root “barm” implies physical tenderness and concrete action. Erbarmen means literally “to cherish in one’s bosom, press to one’s heart.” A second root in barmherzigkeit is the word for heart, herz. The translator wants the reader to appreciate that this German word suggests that one has his or her heart with those who are poor or in distress.

The translator of Mercy from German into English further emphasizes this critical understanding by drawing the equivalent connection with the Latin, misericordia and the word cor meaning heart.

Womb-love, being cherished in the bosom of another, or a God whose heart is with the distressed and poor is not the first place my thoughts go when the priest says, “Let us call to mind our sins.  Pray for God’s mercy!”

Unfortunately, my old Anglo-Saxon, Teutonic heritage still sends me into a nose-dive of pleading for unwarranted forgiveness, guilty as accused and deserving of punishment by a just authority.

How much more blessed – and accurate – we English speakers would be if the next time we prayed “Lord, have mercy!” we recognized the poverty of our English translation and again got in touch with the richness conveyed in the German, Hebrew and Latin originals.

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Life As It Should Be

Scooter season has finally returned to Minneapolis! My Kymco People 150 was polished, serviced and filled with gas when I retrieved it from storage at the Scooterville dealership yesterday. (Yes, that’s really the name.) Riding home felt like one of those “Ah, life as it should be!” kind of moments.

Although a ride to Scooterville had been offered, I deliberately wanted to take the bus. Yes, I love my “bike” for the sheer enjoyment riding provides.  But a big motivation is cost savings and energy conservation. So, why use the extra fossil fuels when a bus is going in that direction anyway! Besides, every time I ride a city bus it has proven to be a very enlightening reintroduction to the city on which we live. Yesterday did not disappoint.

You may have noticed that four presidents gathered in Austin, TX this week to mark the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act. This towering achievement of the Johnson administration ended legal racial segregation in public places. Again, it prohibited legal segregation by race in public places. The force of law can protect certain rights and proscribe some behaviors. It cannot change human hearts.

Charles M. Blow observes a really tragic fact. “Now we are facing another, worsening kind of segregation, one not codified but cultural: We are self-sorting, not only along racial lines but also along educational and income ones, particularly in our big cities. … Our cities are increasingly becoming vast outposts of homogeneity and advantage, arching ever upward, interspersed by deserts of despair, all of which produces in them some of the highest levels of income inequality ever seen in this country.” [link]

Blow cites a report by Stanford researchers: “The proportion of families living in affluent neighborhoods more than doubled from 7 percent in 1970 to 15 percent in 2009. Likewise, the proportion of families in poor neighborhoods doubled from 8 percent to 18 percent over the same period.”

According to a study published last year in the journal Education and Urban Society, “Students are more racially segregated in schools today than they were in the late 1960s and prior to the enforcement of court-ordered desegregation in school districts across the country.”

Riding the bus confirmed Blow’s contention: We need to see people other than ourselves in order to empathize. If we don’t live around others we do ourselves and our society damage because our ability to relate becomes impaired. It’s easy to demonize, or simply dismiss, people you don’t know or see. It’s in this context that we can keep having inane conversations about the “habits” and “culture” of the poor and “inner city” citizens. It’s nearly impossible to commiserate with the unseen and unknown.

Yes, I ride my scooter because it’s fun, saves me money and lessening my consumption of fossil fuels makes me feels socially responsible. Picking up my scooter yesterday taught me another lesson: I need to get off my scooter from time to time and ride the bus if I am truly to see the world in which we live!

I am inclined to suggest that we dispense with the overly ritualized washing of feet on Holy Thursday or the sanitized “reverencing” of the cross on Good Friday. Instead of going to church, ride a bus across town sometime this “holy” week. Sit for one hour with a community as much our own as our self-sorted congregations.  Get beyond “the law” and our domesticated “public” liturgies.

Whose face do we see?

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How Are the Children?

As a development officer at the University of Minnesota I was well aware that two-thirds of students enrolled in four-year colleges and universities nationwide take on student loans to help pay for their education. Each year I would soberly inform prospective donors the debt a typical student carries upon graduation, today nearly $30,000. The burden of such an obligation – especially for our grads in the College of Education and Human Development who generally enter careers at the low end of the salary range – was a good motivator for me to get up and go to work every day. I naively assumed that money I raised would really make a difference.

Now I recognize that our students are enmeshed in a system that is much more complex and resistant to meaningful reform. Here’s the harsh bind in which young people find themselves: Many wouldn’t be able to attend college at all without easy access to loans. Over the past thirty years the real cost of attending a four-year institution has at least tripled, far outpacing inflation. I saw this at the U of M and how available grants and scholarships just didn’t go as far as they used to. Besides, we fought an erroneous perception that as a “state school” costs at the U are relatively cheap and well subsidized by tax-payers. Not true! Combine all this with the fact that family income levels have been stagnant since the 1970s.

The squeeze placed on our young people ain’t pretty! An incisive article in the current issue of  Commonweal [link] by Hollis Phelps reports that 38 million individuals now hold a combined total of more than $1 trillion in student loan debt. That’s four times what it was ten years ago, and it surpasses total U.S. credit card debt. In fact, when it comes to what Americans owe, student loan debt is second only to mortgage debt. And generally, these obligations are virtually impossible to discharge in a bankruptcy proceeding. While many are struggling to keep their heads above water, at least 10 percent of recent borrowers are currently in default, the highest rate in almost twenty years.

Hollis describes a typical situation: Students, especially those with the greatest need who sometimes graduate with double the average debt, aren’t necessarily poor planners or irresponsible borrowers, misinformed about the debt they are taking on to finance their college education. They just come from homes that couldn’t afford to put money into a college savings account. They already have part-time jobs, but a typical minimum wage doesn’t make much of a dent in current tuition rates. They know what it means to tighten their belts, since they’ve done so all their lives.

Most of us are well aware of these challenging realities. But Hollis article opened my eyes to a shocking truth: moralistically shifting all responsibility onto the individual borrower conceals the fact that student loan debt is, in one way or another, a highly profitable business. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the federal government stands to make $175 billion in profit from student loans over the next decade, and profits for loan servicers and lenders have continued to rise. Investors and speculators are also in on the action, as student loan debts, like risky mortgages, are bundled and sold as securities in financial markets. The Wall Street Journal has reported that investors want more, with demand as much as fifteen times greater than supply.

Then there are the schools themselves. There are campuses to maintain, faculty and staff to pay and fierce competition out there for bodies, especially among the huge number of schools that are dependent on student tuition for operating revenue. The simple fact is that many institutions would likely cease to exist, at least in their current forms, without the reality of student debt. As with too much in our Free Market economy, we have “commodified” our students.

Hollis correctly observes that higher education functions similarly to our current healthcare system: it’s a complicated market composed of numerous actors that operate at various levels to sell a product that individuals in some sense have to consume. Opting out of either system isn’t really much of an option, and individuals will go to great lengths, including taking on exorbitant debt, to use the services both provide, because both have direct impacts on livelihood. All the while, those who run the systems profit from our needs and desires.

It’s a big mess! I suspect we will not muster the energy to resolve the economic, social, academic and political challenges until we recognize our moral responsibilites imbedded in the current state of affairs and accept, in justice, the obligation we have to more than our own biological children.

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Redeeming Pain

There is more than enough tragedy and suffering to go around. Instant global communication has compounded the impact. For example, outrage at the killing of Jesuit Father Frans van der Lugt in Syria yesterday ricocheted around the world within 24 hours. Such moral outrage is necessary and important – but it can be numbing. All the more reason to celebrate healing, success and grounds for hope!

Thanks to a friend from the Minnesota International Center who shared a [link] to a really powerful piece about forgiveness and reconciliation in Rwanda. Stunning photos accompany disarming profiles of human anguish and triumph – a testimony to healing and hope for what is possible within a generation of the horrific genocide in which 1 million Rwandans were killed.

We have witnessed such reconciliation and reason for hope before. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu provided a mechanism for people to confess their participation in human rights abuses during apartheid and receive amnesty. Some argue that those responsible for the policies of apartheid should have been held criminally liable. But that is not the route chosen by the Nobel Peace laureate archbishop or President Nelson Mandela.

The moral genius of the TRC was the public airing of the painful truth which prevented the violence of apartheid from being buried in the past.  Rev. Marie Fortune warns on her [blog], the Shakespearian advice to “forgive and forget” is too often directed at victims and survivors of violence. “Forgiveness does not come from a position of powerlessness but from a place of empowerment and a degree of safety; forgiveness is never about forgetting the past, but in remembering the past in order to strengthen our efforts not to repeat it.” Justice requires truth-telling and remembering before forgiveness.  We see this in Rwanda.  And, as numbing as it can be, instant worldwide news reporting has the potential to serve this essential purpose.

Coincidentally, David Brooks has a marvelous piece in today’s NYTimes entitled “What Suffering Does” [link]. He is quick to point out, “there is nothing intrinsically ennobling about suffering. Just as failure is sometimes just failure (and not your path to becoming the next Steve Jobs) suffering is sometimes just destructive, to be exited as quickly as possible.” Yet, Brooks celebrates those transcendent survivors who have the capacity to understand their suffering in some larger providence:

It’s at this point that people in the midst of difficulty begin to feel a call. They are not masters of the situation, but neither are they helpless. They can’t determine the course of their pain, but they can participate in responding to it. They often feel an overwhelming moral responsibility to respond well to it. …  

The right response to this sort of pain is not pleasure. It’s holiness. I don’t even mean that in a purely religious sense. It means seeing life as a moral drama, placing the hard experiences in a moral context and trying to redeem something bad by turning it into something sacred.

Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different. 

Martyrdom in Syria, the hard work of reconciliation in Rwanda, requisite remembering with truth-telling of Marie Fortune, suffering’s ennobling potential cited by David Brooks… wherever we look a world in anguish invites us – desperately needs us – to embrace the paschal drama of Holy Week.

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Just People

Forty-nine years ago I was popping my buttons with pride.  High school was a tough time for me with peer pressure dampening any spontaneous expression of individuality. But inside I was exploding with satisfaction, pleasure, even a dash of adolescent smugness.  My big brother was marching in Selma, Alabama with Martin Luther King.  No one else at my elite, all-male, JESUIT Creighton Prep could share that distinction with me.

Lest we forget, it was illegal for whites to marry a black person or an Asian during my seemingly idyllic childhood in Nebraska.  That barrier fell two years before Selma but it was not until 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned all such prohibitions remaining in recalcitrant states.  Unjust laws were crumbling and a wave of much-needed reform was sweeping our nation.  My brother was atop that wave.  Not until last Sunday afternoon, March 7 was I reminded of the anniversary.  I regretted not having honored that momentous event on these pages.

This weekend provides another chance.  Today, March 14 is the anniversary of the death of a famous icon of the civil rights movement.  Fannie Lou Hamer died on this day in 1977 from breast cancer at the age of 60.  She lived most of her life as she was born – a poor black sharecropper in Mississippi with a fourth grade education.  The system persisted well beyond emancipation as nothing more than a system of “debt slavery” enforced through insidious segregation and intimidation veiling all too real brute force.  This began to change for Hamer when at the age of 45 she heard a preacher encourage blacks to defy racist repression by doing something as radical as registering to vote.

It remains difficult for us to accurately recall the shame and injustice of these years and admit the oppression and degradation that was part of the air we breathed in America.  But somehow, somewhere this poor, black, uneducated woman had the inspiration and courage to decide that subsisting by sharecropping a “master’s” land was not what God had in mind for her or for others like her.  She would pay a heavy price!  In 1963 Hamer was one of a group arrested in Charleston, South Carolina for having the temerity of illegally entering the side of a bus terminal reserved for whites.  While in jail she was savagely beaten and left with a damaged kidney and eyesight permanently impaired.  In 1964 she would be part of a “Freedom Delegation” from Mississippi challenging the credentials of that state’s slate of all-white delegates to the Democratic National Convention.  Though thrown out, Hamer’s eloquent defense touched the conscience of a nation.

A few weeks back I wrote on this site about a friend who teaches at a Catholic high school. Regulars here will recall she wanted stories about the great men and women of faith her students needed to know about.  Today I nominate Fannie Lou Hamer.  Yes, she was powerfully motivated by the unspeakable injustice she and others like her had to endure.  But, she was empowered and sustained by her faith!  She cited Ephesians 6:8-9 as her touchstone: “Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Isn’t this the sort of hero, mentor, role model, woman of faith, saint we would want our young people to emulate?

And what about us?  Are we willing to confront the structures of injustice that permeate the familiar “world” that props up our seemingly secure and predictable lifestyles?  Are we willing to courageously change course even in mid-life – Hamer was 45 – when suddenly we hear the Word of God calling us to live lives of integrity and self-transcendence.  Are we willing to pay the price that all God’s children are rendered the equal dignity, inalienable respect, practical opportunities and legal protection which we would demand for ourselves and for our children?

Fannie Lou Hamer died of breast cancer at age 60.  She freely gave her life for causes far greater that we might put an end to human degradation and structures of violence.  We are blessed that her compelling witness comes to us during Lent.  We, too, are called to repentance, conversion, and transformation in the way we give flesh to the Word of God.  Like Hamer, my brother was just an ordinary sort of guy.  We have heroes, mentors and role-models all around.  What about us?  What about today?
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I was inspired by and recommend to you the story of Fannie Lou Hamer for today, March 14 in All Saints: Daily Relfections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time by Robert Ellsberg.  Crossroads, 1999.