Poor

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Victory Assured

Truth is I’m smitten. Bordering on giddy. Certainly anxious and eager. Along with many across this nation, I have fallen in love with a horse, California Chrome.

Worthy of poet Gerard Manly Hopkins’ Pied Beauty, here is how the New York Times describes the animal who tomorrow will attempt to be the first horse to sweep the Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978:

The colt comes from common stock and grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in thoroughbred racing, but he is pin-up pretty, with a lustrous chestnut coat pulled taut over a body that looks wrought by the hands of a sculptor.

His name was pulled out of a cowboy hat — for real — and combines his birthplace with the term used by horse people for the flashes of white on a horse. California Chrome sports bobby socks on all four feet, and his face is creased by a white racing stripe.

What sealed the allegiance of this guy who’s only ridden – and that’s a generous term – a horse once in his life was the “common stock” part and hailing from “the wrong side of the tracks.” I also like the fact that Chrome’s trainer is the oldest to ever win the Kentucky Derby at age 77.

Hopkins’s poetry effusively proclaims what we all know in our hearts — we consistently find God in creation, ordinary things and everyday “stuff”.  What else should we expect from a God whose self-revelation occurs primarily within the history of a people and penultimately in the Incarnation?

Tomorrow, as I scrutinize Chrome’s every move in the Belmont Stakes, I will have in mind a poem shared with me by my friend Susan Stabile. It is from Mary Karr and wonderfully titled Who the Meek Are Not. For me, Chrome symbolizes all the little guys, every one of common stock and any from the wrong side of the track – those Jesus titled meek and humble of heart.

Not the bristle-bearded Igors bent
under burlap sacks, not peasants knee-deep
in the rice-paddy muck,
nor the serfs whose quarter-moon sickles
make the wheat fall in waves
they don’t get to eat. My friend the Franciscan
nun says we misread
that word meek in the Bible verse that blesses them.
To understand the meek
(she says) picture a great stallion at full gallop
in a meadow, who—
at his master’s voice—seizes up to a stunned
but instant halt.
So with the strain of holding that great power
in check, the muscles
along the arched neck keep eddying,
and only the velvet ears
prick forward, awaiting the next order.

Let’s cheer all the world’s California Chromes on to victory. For blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth!  We should all aspire to be in their victory circle.

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You may read the entire NYTimes story about California Chrome’s improbable destiny [here].

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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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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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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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Gracias, San Romero!

Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was shot while celebrating Mass in the chapel of La Divina Providencia Hospital on this day in 1980.  It was one day after a sermon in which he appealed to Salvadoran soldiers – as Christians – to obey God’s higher order and to stop carrying out the government sponsored repression of the poor and denial of their fundamental human rights.  An estimated 250,000 people participated in his funeral six days later in the Cathedral of San Salvador.  I have had the privilege of visiting the chapel, Romero’s modest residence on the hospital grounds and to pray at his tomb three times over the years.

We do well to hear his words again today:

“There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried.”

One day before he died: “When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises.”

And seconds before he was shot: “I will not tire of declaring that if we really want an effective end to violence we must remove the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the primal cause, from which the rest flows naturally.”

Today Romero is popularly referred to as San Romero among Salvadorans.  He is one of the ten 20th-century martyrs who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey in London, a testament to the wide respect for him even beyond the Catholic Church.   In 2008, he was chosen as one of the 15 Champions of World Democracy by the Europe-based magazine A Different View.  In 1982 Pope John Paul II prayed at Romero’s tomb on his first visit to El Salvador and officially recognized him as a “Servant of God” in 1997.  It is widely presumed that Archbishop Romero will be beatified during 2017, the centennial year of his birth.

What would Archbishop Romero say about all the fanfare and adulation?  I’m pretty sure he’d challenge us to ask what is it about us that needs to place others on pedestals, declaring another’s faith “saintly” as if it were rare… and rarefied!!!  He would likely explain he was simply doing what needed doing in service of the Gospel… that we should expect our shepherds to smell like their sheep.   Would that we had many more pastors and bishops who cared for the vulnerable and poor with such evangelical clarity and passion!  I suspect he’d tell us to be careful about pointing fingers, questioning whether anyone should be on a pedestal.  With genuine pastoral humility he would say, “What about you?  Tell me more about you.”

What about us?  You?  Me!  How am I going to live the Gospel – today, here, now?