Our Brothers and Sisters?

September 1, innocently doing laundry at her mother’s, Tamara Collier, 24 (pictured on left), a nurses’ assistant was shot.  An errant bullet fired from a high-powered rifle ricocheted even penetrated a wall and door hitting the young mother of two in the neck severing her spinal cord.  She fell to the floor lying between her blood splattered children, Dominique, 5, and D’Marri, 1.  Paralyzed below her shoulders, Tamara is at SLU Hospital struggling with a feeding tube, and fighting to breathe without a ventilator. 

Tamara look familiar?  Not to me.  My wife in frustration with violence brought her to my attention.  “Does her life matter?”

Two weeks later, protests and violence erupted in St. Louis following the acquittal of Stockley in the shooting death of Smith.  Do the protesters know Tamara Collier?  My gut wrenches.  My mind questions; what will this young mother’s care be if she survives?  I can’t plead ignorance.  While Ms. Collier battles for life, many work to repeal the Affordable Care Act cutting millions who need healthcare in addition to capping services to those who’ve fought desperately to defeat a terminal disease to survive or have preexisting conditions.

So many issues surround Tamara and her children.  Issues in community welfare, education, violence, poverty, inadequate healthcare, teen pregnancy, abuse; all existed in St. Louis before she was shot.  Now, for her personally, these are beyond magnification!  Hatred, racism, and greed are learned.  Thirty-five years ago, I entered teaching with the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision to bus students from St. Louis City to suburban schools in an attempt to answer to the issues above with desegregation.  Poverty continues to run high in Ms. Collier’s community.  Will her children grow to be disenfranchised?  Will her family be judged for need or will her family escape ridicule to manage beyond assistance for food, clothing, and shelter?  How many different agencies will come to their aid?  How many that “have” will work to cut her services so that they will “have more?” What would agencies become if they merged as allies working together to reduce racial bias and socio-economic injustice? What justice will her children inherit?

In 1972, there were 300,000 people incarcerated.  Today, in the U.S., 2.3 million are in prison, the highest rate of incarceration of any nation in the world.  Another 7 million sit on parole and probation.¹ Is there a disconnect between incarceration and our beliefs in the dignity of all human life?

“Forgiveness is neither earned nor even deserved, but a gift.  It is also a mystery.  An offender can be punished, but to punish and not to restore, that is the greatest of all offenses ….  If a man takes unto himself God’s right to punish, then he must also take upon himself God’s promise to restore.”             Johann Christoph Arnold, author of Forgiveness

As he ages, will D’Marri become the 1 out of 3 black males between the ages of 18 and 30 to go to prison or on probation or parole; specifically, in urban cities across the U.S., 50 – 60% of all young males of color are in jail or on probation.¹ 

Dominique and D’Marri run a tremendous risk of sinking into poverty.  “We have a system of justice in this country that treats you much better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. Wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes. And yet, we seem to be very comfortable. The politics of fear and anger have made us believe that these are problems that are not our problems. We've been disconnected.”  -- Bryan Stevenson author of Just Mercy

How are communities of the poor and of color being shaped?  What are potential outcomes?

Are people aware?  Presently in Alabama, 34% of the black male population has permanently lost the right to vote.  The U.S. has numerous states with inmates serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes.  In addition, many of these were young teens at the time of sentencing. ¹

Death penalty error rate:  1 in every 9 executed is proven innocent.¹     

“I talk about race and this question of whether we deserve to kill.  And it's interesting, when I teach my students about African-American history, I tell them about slavery. I tell them about terrorism, the era that began at the end of reconstruction that went on to World War II. We don't really know very much about it. But for African-Americans in this country, that was an era defined by terror. In many communities, people had to worry about being lynched. They had to worry about being bombed. It was the threat of terror that shaped their lives. And these older people come up to me now and they say, "Mr. Stevenson, you give talks, you make speeches, you tell people to stop saying we're dealing with terrorism for the first time in our nation's history after 9/11." They tell me to say, "No, tell them that we grew up with that." And that era of terrorism, of course, was followed by segregation and decades of racial subordination and apartheid.”  Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, author of “Just Mercy:  A Story of Justice and Redemption”

Millions of men and women sacrificed their lives during a second world war that halted the systematic killing of Jews.  In states of the old south, one is 11 times more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white than if the victim is black, 22 times more likely to get it if the defendant is black and the victim is white.¹

Am I better than the worst thing I have ever done?  Are our brothers’ and sisters’ better than the worst they’ve done?  Pope Francis spoke to our youth and to the world on a recent TED Talk saying “our humanity depends upon all humanity.” 

Is our society at risk … is Christianity at risk … is our Church at risk … is technology, innovation, creativity at risk … to the abused, denigrated, suffering, and marginalized?

Will the character of our society be measured by innovation, design, reason, and intellect or will it be measured as Christ asked us to live; the character of a society will not be measured by how they treat the powerful and the privileged, but by how they treat the poor and marginalized?

Dollars will not change these issues alone.  Relationships will.  Respect, forgiveness, compassion, grit, and perseverance will   We are the hands and minds of Christ.  We must use them.  Perhaps, we, as men, are overdue to gather with our brothers of different colors, creeds, and cultures in systematic dialogue and action once a quarter?  We are elements of change!

“Who is our neighbor?” Lk 10:29 Who is our brother?  Who is our sister?

Do you hear rumbling or silence?  Our faith holds that all lives matter -- do they?

Though the following passage is related to hurricanes, it is more related to the answers found in the goodness of people.  Demonstrated far better than I am able to write, watch it.  Peace.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-worst-of-harvey-brought-out-americas-best/

***On the heals of the latest shooting in Las Vegas, I was not prepared, but wanted to pass along the words and wisdom of Fr. James Martin SJ author and editor of the Jesuit journal America.  
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2012/12/17/gun-control-pro-life-issue

Footnotes:

Statistics used in my research drawn from the Equal Justice Initiative.

For an insightful, challenging presentation, watch --

(1) “We need to talk about an injustice” – Bryan Stevenson TED Talk and author of “Just Mercy”

https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice

My Favorite Mystery

Last month I wrote about beer…among other things.  This month I gave up beer.  I’d like to say it was part of a spiritual fast, and my withholding was tied in with prayer and meditation, but in all honesty, it was strictly dietary.  As I look back over the past few weeks, I realize that I wasted opportunities.  My diet involved days of fasting.  Although I remembered to bathe and comb my hair (see Matthew 6:16-18), I should have joined my minor physical discomfort to prayer, and given it a higher purpose.  I wonder what other opportunities are wasted.

I think the rosary may be one of the most misunderstood prayers in our faith, and perhaps one of the most incorrectly executed prayers by those who regularly recite it.  I think many opportunities to grow closer to Jesus are wasted during the reciting of countless decades of the rosary.  I am confident in saying this because for many years I know I was guilty of religiously “saying” the rosary, but not “praying” it.

What is the rosary?  Is it simply a way to log prayer minutes?  Is it nothing more than rote verse?  If it is, then we’re doing it wrong.  Rather, the rosary is a time to meditate on our faith, on God, and on the life of Jesus Himself.  Meditating on each mystery of the rosary should be our focus throughout the prayer.  If we are not dwelling on the mysteries as we pray, then truly we are simply reciting repetitive words.

My favorite mystery is the 2^nd Joyful Mystery: The Visitation.  Seemingly, there isn’t much to this mystery.  It could be a simple story to fill the space between Gabriel’s visit, and the Nativity.  Sure Elizabeth was pregnant with John, and he’ll come back into play in 30 years or so, but there could be an argument made that Jesus and John don’t even seem to know each other personally when they are reunited in the Jordan River.  If we just take the words ‘Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth’ at face value, then we’re done.  We really don’t have much else to meditate on as we recited the next ten Hail Mary’s.

The mysteries, however, are an invitation for us to remember, to read, to study, to recall, and to ponder every aspect of Jesus’ life.  On the one hand, how cool is Mary?  In the first chapter of Luke, we hear that upon finding out she was pregnant with Jesus; Mary decided to hike up to the hill country in Judah to visit Elizabeth.  Three months later, and three months further along in her pregnancy, she would hike back.  I don’t know if that gives much revelation into the life of Jesus, but as someone who loves the outdoors, I think our mother Mary is pretty awesome for getting out and walking around the mountains.

Admittedly that first insight about Mary hiking is something I just like to consider privately, and doesn’t have a greater theological basis.  Everyone walked everywhere in those days, but it still makes me smile when I ponder that mystery while taking a hike up the hills at Castlewood State Park.  If you want material that is a little deeper, however, we only need to read on in Luke.  We find that the unborn John the Baptist leaped in the womb of Elizabeth, upon hearing Mary’s greeting, and upon being overjoyed at the visit from the unborn Jesus she was carrying.  (Paraphrase from Luke 1:40-41)  If this passage isn’t a glaring proclamation of the dignity of human life from the point of conception, and a 2,000 year old declaration that the pre-born are aware of stimuli in their environment, then I don’t know what is.  In just a few short words, I’ve always found it to be perhaps the most pro-life passage in the bible.

Mary had just finished learning of her pregnancy from Gabriel when she went to visit Elizabeth.  Even at that microscopic stage of development, the gospel clearly tells us that Jesus is recognized as much more than cells.  He is our Lord.  And who recognizes Him first?  The unborn John the Baptist at approximately 6 month’s gestation; somewhere between 2^nd and 3^rd trimester.  Maybe I’m reading a little too much into this passage, but at a minimum, I think it is an irrefutable claim to the value of pre-born life, written to us two millennia ago.

As we move on, we see beautiful words spoken by both Elizabeth and Mary during this visit.  Those words would go on to form the Hail Mary and Magnificat prayers.  This brings us around full circle.  The rosary is a recitation of scripture, and we see the basis of the Hail Mary right here in Luke.  Its main focus is not the repetitive praise of Mary, but rather the reciting of the Gospels, the learning of the life of Jesus, the pondering of His teachings, and even insight as to where teachings of the catechism have their basis.

So that’s an overly abbreviated account of why I like the 2^nd Joyful Mystery.  Pray the rosary today and think about your favorite mystery as you learn more about Jesus. 

by: Matt Buehrig

The Truth is Black & White

I’ve been putting off an iPad problem. Finally admitting defeat, I head to the West County mall Apple Store. The next available Genius Bar appointment is in a hour, so I put my name in and went with my 14 year old daughter to the food court. As we get our Philly cheesesteaks and sit down, Hanna notices about fifty police officers coming through the food court entrance into the mall.

“They are probably getting lunch before they head downtown” I quickly state as I see Hanna start to get worried. Then they came. Hundreds of angry protestors chanting and yelling through the food court. Several are wearing ski masks and jumping around, antagonizing the shop owners, while others simply march with signs.

“Why are they doing this?” Hanna asked. I had explained the day before about the verdict, so she knew the situation, but her question was why are they here, now, in the mall. I told her that when people see something in their world that they don’t feel is right, there is something inside us that gets upset. That anger you have in the face of injustice is God given, and we need to act on that to help make this world a better place.

Hanna had come with Lisa and I to protest outside of Planned Parenthood before. I reminded her of what that was like. That we felt that there was something wrong going on, and our way of standing up against it, was to stand with signs and pray outside of the facility. The conversation then went to “What about when things get violent, or set on fire?” I tell her that our faith helps guide us here, and hurting others, stealing or vandalizing, even if it is in the name of what you feel is a greater good, is wrong.

So I think I’ve helped take this stressful situation and turned it into a great lesson for my kid. Then she drops the bomb on me in the car as we are leaving the parking lot, “Dad, how do you know if you’re right or not?” Well, ummm, you see Hanna…..