Corpus Mysticum: How the Eucharistic Image Informs my Eating

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May 20, 2010

By Lisa Carlson

I have situated myself in front of my dinner table as I write. My heart and mind are both filled with grief and inspiration. I grieve how exclusive our homes and tables are in this society. I lament that the poor do not know that they are welcome to knock at the doors of our churches and our homes to be cared for and yet (sigh) I am utterly and unstoppably inspired by the imagination and revolutionary ways of Jesus’s eating practices. As I have wrestled with, ruminated on and researched the holy texts around eating, I am comforted, affirmed and galvanized by the explicit fact that this is our tradition and our unique identity as followers of Christ; to allow our ways of eating to witness to the inclusive, healing and flourishing way of Christ in our world and for our people. I am charged that even in something as ordinary as eating, Jesus served to heal, liberate and reconstruct society.
I have learned through the scriptures and liberation theologians that I think Christ is mostly concerned with us being aware of our interconnectedness with God and with one another and that his meal practices are what spoke to this. Because of this, I believe now that one of our greatest tasks as a Christian is that we simply must nurture our understanding of this interconnectedness. Because, you see, it appears to me that what was so miraculous about Jesus eating practices was not that everyone got fed, but that everyone ate together. Because in this eating together, people became more aware that Christianity is about relational wholeness, which makes us all Christ’s Body and members of one another: “The knitting together would be the beginning of the recapitulation of all systems in Christ… It is clear that Paul sees the concrete working out of real presence in a community of people who are open and who identify not with the few, the like-believers, but with all- with Christ himself in the whole body.”
Our tradition, in its very beingness, is revolutionary. It is a tradition deeply rooted in the ways that Jesus subverted and transformed the complex structural issues of society that served to separate the elite and the non-elite, rich from the poor, the clean from the unclean. He did this not by talking about how the rules should be changed, but by simply living (and in this- modeling) a different way in the face of the ruling cultural narrative. Simply put, this was just something he did: to eat with the poor, the lonely, the exiled, the Jew, the Gentile, the clean and unclean. And from this, I believe that we, as a part of the Mystical Body of Christ, should be living this way too.
I find it to be extremely honoring that Christ in Fritz Eichenberg’s, “Christ of the breadlines”, is located in the line with the people and not at the other end of the line serving the people. Gustavo Gutierrez speaks to this when he says: “Jesus’ table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners vividly expresses his solidarity with the victims of established powers. Eating is a symbol of fellowship. Jesus got into trouble for eating with social outcasts because for the Jews, meal is also a symbol of fellowship with God. This is why Jesus used the meal as a picture of the Kingdom.” This is precisely what makes Christ’s way of eating revolutionary- it is because he is with them, and all are invited. We, as a church, must find ways of manifesting this identity too and I believe that even our eating habits make way for this manifestation to nuzzle its way into the hearts and minds of society.
Continued… Corpus Mysticum: How the Eucharistic Image Informs my Eating

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Men are People Too: Beyond Gender into Liberation

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May 5, 2010

by Maria-Jose Soerens

Let’s face it: labels are handy not only because in a fast-paced world identity sources are fragile, but also because naming can be a powerful political act. In my circles, I often run into people who label themselves as “feminists.” I have done it too, but I’m increasingly growing fond of “post-colonial” (indeed, all contributors of this blog describe themselves as such).

Feminism has been powerful in questioning patriarchal systems, and calling into question who gets to name what and why. However, I join my black feminist sisters in believing that choosing to explain the world exclusively through the eyes of gender (as middle-class white feminists do), leaves out realities of oppression that stem not only from race but also from class, poverty, and the agenda of the U.S. empire.

I see this among Seattle therapists all the time: “I want to work with women,” some say. Or “we want to build a space that will welcome women only.” It is true: women suffer from oppression based on tradition and religion throughout the world at all times. Women are stoned, beaten, raped, used, underpaid, undermined, brutally abused, sold into slavery in a higher percentage than men, sold as property, all over the world. And this is not a matter to be taken lightly– we must continue advocating for women’s voice to be heard and for equality in every possible way. That said, I also believe that looking at men as more privileged just because of their gender is to dangerously miss the point.

When we dare to look at poverty and oppression (and I say “dare” because many people are so uncomfortable looking at these that they have become a taboo), we soon see that poor men, indigenous men, black men, muslin men, homeless men, prostituted men, sexually-abused and exploited boys, veterans, and immigrant men are also in much need of help. In other words, oppression goes beyond gender.

From the Mexican migrant worker who became landless after NAFTA and could not feed his family, to the Sudanese soldier who is raping women, acting out the raping of his people by the hands of European Empires, men also face oppression and poverty. Our enemy is not manhood. Our enemies, instead, are , greed, comfort, broken relationships, self-indulgence, oblivion, and passivity in the face of injustice.

It is when we look at our own brokenness and are able to receive love in the midst of that darkness, that we can find grace towards one another and build bridges between genders, nations, and class divides. Because it is only through present and consistent relationship that we can fight against the empire within.

Ignacio Martín-Baró, a Spanish priest and proponent of the Psychology of Liberation, who died by the hands of a Salvadorian death squad in 1989, spoke about the internalized oppression of the Salvadorian people and called us to recognize trauma as a pervasive and collective experience, rooted in the distortions of social relations and the disruptions of community life that are the products of an oppressive, terror-ridden society.

What we are aiming for is not only gender equality, but liberation from the chains of poverty and oppression that find their roots in imperialistic projects of domination, and we cannot fight fire with fire. The White Feminist movements of the 80s and 90s are a testament to this. Even though my generation can be extremely grateful for counting with much more choices than our mothers did, the legacy of this movement was pretty much to prove that women could sin in the same way than men. Women not only proved that we are capable of working and studying, and deserving of the same salary, but we also proved that we could be greedy, and power hungry, and disconnected during sexual intercourse (Carrie Bradshaw anyone?). The narrative was pretty much the same: We will conquer an empire and we are entitled to our share. In the meantime, women and men all over the world continue to be crushed by poverty and injustice, and our blindness to it continues to cripple our policies.

My point being: our struggle is greater than gender differences and our task is to extend our hand and set a liberation agenda, promoting equal access to democracy in every way we can. Because, oppression is pervasive and the empire is within.

Imagine a world where men are being healed… what difference would that make for women (and men).

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A 48 Kind of Life

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May 3, 2010

by Maria-Jose Soerens

I live in one of the most obliviously segregated cities in the US: Seattle. With one of the highest levels of education per capita and a strong progressive identity, people in Seattle are often excited about the latest Social Justice “issue” while unaware of their own “mainstream-ness” and physical distance from the poor among us.

We not only have very defined urban boundaries separating class and race (Bhutanese people in Greenlake? seriously?) but even if we share the same block, the limits of our lifestyle and habits of consumption are not conducive to running into people who are different from us. My dear friend Halimo, from Somalia, lives half a block away from me yet she doesn’t hang out in the same coffee shop than I do, much less has a laptop to chill and do some freelance work while sipping her Americano. Our distance impoverish us all.

the 48 bus in Seattle goes through all white and multi-ethnic neighborhoods in the city

In this context of gentrified neighborhoods and segregated community spaces, I often run into the dilemma of going and meeting people “where they are at,” or crafting healing spaces in the middle of downtown Seattle so as to increase our Social Capital.

There are good reasons to “go” and meet people in their midst. Most refugee and immigrant families live in the South side of Seattle (Columbia City, Rainier Vista, White Center), and on the East side (Bellevue, Kent, etc), because rent prices in Seattle are not affordable for a family that lives on $600 per month. Many adults work up to three shifts to make ends meet therefore have no time to travel downtown to seek much needed counseling services or support groups.

On the other hand, if these families have no reason to ever leave the “ghetto,” they miss opportunities to integrate and foster relationships with people who are better plugged into the mainstream network. Hence, these families become more impoverished because they lack social capital.

Facilitating the development of Social Capital for the poor among us should be one of the paramount priorities of our advocacy efforts. It is certainly a burden to make time in our schedule to go and help immigrant families, but it may not be too bad to help your friend Hodan who needs a ride to an appointment at the the immigration office, or connect her with your small business owner friend who is hiring a position for her coffeehouse in Fremont.

This type of relationships occur when we dwell in the same physical space. Therefore our efforts should be focused on creating environments that allow for connection between people who are different, for relationships to thrive and for stories to be shared. One of the biggest struggles of our time is equal access to the city; we are losing the right to live in it. As my friend Paul Sparks says “community is becoming illegal.”

Advocating for equal housing opportunities in our neighborhoods is one of the most revolutionary, radical, and sustainable things we could do. However, as Dr. Perkins says, it needs to first become our burden, and that burden will be our own when we take the time to open our eyes and extend our hand to the poor and the foreign in our midst.

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