No values?

"They have no values." That was my coworker's judgement of "illegals" as I talked to her in the kitchen this morning. The racism in her statement took my breath away while I searched quickly for how to respond.

The context for her comment was a conversation about violence in American society and troubled youth. I suppose it's a matter of perspective. Neither of us wants to see youth being shot on a regular basis in L.A., as is currently the case. But my first reaction is to say we should invest more federal, state, and private resources--and invest those resources more wisely--in schools, in violence prevention programs, and in community assistance for youth and low-income families. Her perspective was that it came down to illegal immigrants with no values. Ouch.

Now, any good anthropology student can tell you that there is no such thing as a collection of people with no values. People's and societies' values can be extremely different, but everyone has values. I was reading an article about gang members in the paper and the policeman who was giving a quote said that although gang members break the laws of the broader society, they will remain staunchly true to the values and rules set up within the gang. He seemed to think this was weird. It's not weird at all, not anymore than that white middle-class Americans are true to different values and ways of expressing those values than middle-class Japanese--just think about the question of individuality/family-society obligation. Perhaps one could say that the broader American society has some problems with values when we can callously label immigrants as the reason why we have problems while at the same time abusing them through unjust labor practices and attempting to deny them basic human rights such as access to health care.

Aside from the falsehood of the statement, however, what really breaks my heart is the way that racism is so deeply embedded that it comes out in a comment like that in a kitchen conversation between two well-meaning people. I debated even posting her comment, but I think it's important to honestly see how prevalent racism is. I am coming to love the Latina junior high girls I work with, and at least half if not more of their families are illegal, and let me just tell you that they are far from being people with no values!

Barack Obama on Race in America

Some excellent reflections on race in America from Barack Obama, spoken recently at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Personally, I think the speech is far too positive about America and Israel, in light of all the horrific abuses those two countries have committed against people within and outside of their borders (I'm not anti-American or anti-Israel, I'm just speaking the truth), but I know that you can't get elected President by talking about America in less than glorious terms. Anyway, other than that point, his speech is great and I'd strongly encourage taking a moment to read it.

or watch!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp-v2tHaDo

The Church as Surprise

What does it mean to be the church? To be a messy conglomeration of such very different people trying to follow God?

I think I've always reacted against the line of thought that says Christians should cluster together in a little bubble and only listen to "Christian" music, read "Christian" books, be friends with "Christian" people, etc. And I don't think most folks who think like this are trying to be isolationist, but rather trying to keep up their values in a world that quite plainly is rather crazy. And of course, most of us accumulate our closest friends based on shared values, hobbies, experiences, etc. But you know, I grew up in a setting where more than 99% of people didn't share my beliefs in God, most of my friends didn't believe in Jesus, I listened to popular music (I am mostly proud of this except for when I think of certain disgustingly trivial and sappy songs!), and I STILL love Jesus, in fact, I think I love him even more! Discovering the American christian culture bubble in the States really freaked me out, and if I hadn't previously discovered Jesus outside of that, I think I might have fled the other way.

And the more I actually read what Jesus said, the more I become convinced that to remain in a bubble is distinctly unchristian behavior. Jesus spent most of his time with low-class fishermen, healing sick and dead people who were considered "unclean," talking to women and adulterers and the poor...the list goes on. In fact, most of his messages to the religious elite of the time were "woe to you!"

David Bosch writes, "I believe that the church discovers her true nature only as she moves from one human world to another, when she crosses frontiers, whether these are geographical, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or sociological. The same discovery applies to the individual believer" (A Spirituality of the Road). Bosch's quote really gave me some food for thought when I read it. I haven't been very good at this at all points in my life. I love interacting with people from different places and different perspectives, and being a missionary kid has meant that most situations in Thailand and the States have been cross-cultural for me in some way, but it's often easiest to press into deep relationships with people who are somewhat similar to me. This really challenges me to practice and learn to be a person who establishes relationships across religious, cultural, ethnic, class, and other borders, not just for a season, but as a consistent practice for a lifetime.

The beautiful thing about crossing boundaries is that we learn more about God and his character as we follow Jesus' example in border-crossing and as we soak in the richness of Christian thought from countries around the world. Relying on predominately western upper middle class white male theologians to interpret the Bible alone doesn't allow us to understand God as fully as also listening to how Christians in Asia or South America read the Word, and how people living in the slums of Manila understand the promises of God.

To close, a great quote about missiology (the study of missions) from theologian Ivan Illich:
"Missiology studies the growth of the Church into new peoples, the birth of the Church beyond its social boundaries, beyond the linguistic barriers within which she feels at home; beyond the poetical images in which she taught her children. The Church is led to marvel about the ever new images in which her venerable knowledge can become meaningful for the first time...missiology therefore is the study of the Church as surprise."

Garden of Hope

In the course of networking and job searching, I was so excited to come across Garden of Hope, a registered foundation in Thailand located in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which is where I went to high school.

Their mission statement:
"The Garden of Hope reaches out to women, children, and youth involved in, at risk of, or affected by prostitution, sexual exploitation and/or trafficking by developing Christ-centered relationships and offering alternative livelihoods and resources for personal development so they may experience a life of restoration, dignity, and hope that will lead to the transformation of Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand for God’s glory."

The people involved with Garden of Hope provide vocational training to these women and youth, build relationships with women and children working in the bars in Chiang Mai, and are in the process of securing funding to start a culinary arts training school and hoping to at some point establish a child care center where the working women can drop off their kids, instead of having them in the bars with them.

I cannot tell you how excited I was to read about them and to see multiple things I'm passionate about come together!!! I'm going to email them and introduce myself and ask a bit about what kinds of preparation or training they would recommend for folks who are interested in working someday with this kind of thing.

Waiting for things to speed by like a tortoise

Thank you for your patience with my silence these last couple weeks! I am thankful to report that my talk went well, thanks to God's grace and power (as part of the internship, every intern has to give a sermon to the rest of their intern class). Even though it was a bit stressful, it was a very helpful experience. It was good to discover even more the power that is in God's word and how all parts of the Bible, even the parts where we shake our heads and get confused, have something relevant to say if you are willing to stay in the conversation.

I am still currently job searching. I had two interviews for one organization this last week and I was so excited about working for them, but then once the hours were made clear (late nights and weekends included), it was quickly apparent to me that there is no possible way to reconcile that with my internship commitments. So that was pretty disappointing and discouraging. This means that I'm still applying and looking and hoping for call backs. Job searching brings up a lot of issues for me about how much I trust God. Do I really think that God's plan will be best for me or do I want God to make MY plans come to pass? How do I pray passionately for something while at the same time acknowledging that God might have a better plan in mind that I haven't even thought of?

We are beginning to hear talk about interview weekend for those considering the Servant Partners internship for this next year, and I can hardly believe that it's that time already. How is it already March? Before I started the internship, I had a lot of expectations about how quickly I would bond with people in my neighborhood and develop transformative relationships. I didn't realize how much time and energy it takes to simply transition from living a college lifestyle to working full-time and trying to be invested in a new community while going to all these mentorship and training meetings (and job searching!). The pace of developing relationships has been a lot slower than making new friends among my college peers, when we were around each other 24/7 and had more free time. Part of me feels slightly embarrassed that a newcomer or outsider could look at me and criticize me for not having deeper relationships already. And then another part of me wonders if I'm feeling guilty for a situation that is simply the reality of how life often works. That relationships can take a long time to blossom. That it takes a lot of energy and time to make new friendships and mentor people when most of your week is devoted to working. That even if I feel small and insufficient, God is at work in Northwest Pasadena and he's been here before I got here and will be here long after I am gone, and at the heart of it, that's what matters.

Here are a couple interesting and relevant links sent to me by friends:
A video of interview snippets with local leaders in Pasadena on the challenges and characteristics of Northwest Pasadena. If you want to know more about where I'm living, check this out!

Two articles from the Economist, one on urban black flight from L.A, and one on the dispersal of Latino immigrants across the United States.

"Housework...takes many forms, depending on what is in your heart as you approach it. I personally am inclined to approach it the way governments treat dissent: ignore it until it revolts." High Tide in Tucson