A good friend of mine, who recently lived and worked in Jerusalem, is putting together a dvd on Gaza for Catholic Relief Services (crs.org). Unfortunately, copyright laws are creating a few road blocks to the process, so he is looking for independent artists/musicians/music that he could use for the purposes of the dvd. If you know anyone, are an artist yourself, or have music you would be willing to share for the project, I would greatly appreciate any help with this. The music should be really wide ranging in genre…and the whole project is really fantastic…

Thanks!

She came to embody a radicalism that was sustained and founded on orthodoxy and love for the Church, one that inspires and gives me hope today. It was precisely her love for the church that fueled her desire to change the Church. And when I come to places where I am burned and frustrated with the Institution, with decisions like the one made recently in the Lancaster Conference to deny women ordination–decisions that deny imago Dei, that deny humanity to God’s children, I turn to the authentic voices of people like Day. And I am able to rejoice once more in this life, I am able to hope once more, and I am called once again not to leave, but to remain–I am reminded that my love for the Church only intensifies the pain of exclusion and injustice carried out in the scandals of the church. The Church is indeed that which brings “Christ to humanity…enabling us to put on Christ and to achieve more nearly in the world a sense of peace and unity.”

Her prophetic voice is not one spoken over and against the Institution, but right at the center of it. A voice, and more importantly a life, we can all learn from:

“I loved the Church for Christ made visible. Not for itself, because it was so often a scandal to me. Romano Guardini said the Church is the Cross on which Christ was crucified…the scandal of businesslike priests, of collective wealth, the lack of a sense of responsibility for the poor, the worker, the Negro, the Mexican, the Filipino, and even the oppression of these, and the consenting to the oppression of them by our industrialist-capitalist order–There was plenty of charity but too little justice. And yet the priests were the dispensers of the Sacraments, bringing Christ to humanity, all enabling us to put on Christ and to achieve more nearly in the world a sense of peace and unity…”

“I pray because I am happy, not becuase I am unhappy. I did not turn to God in unhappiness, in grief, in despair-to get consolation, to get something from God. I was praying becuase I wanted to thank God. No matter how dull the day, how long the walk seemed, if I felt sluggish at the beginning of the walk, the words I had been saying insinuated themselves into my heart before I had finished, so that one the trip back I neither prayed nor thought, but was filled with exultation…My very experience as a radical, my whole make-up, led me to want to associate myself with others, with the masses, in loving and praising God.” (The Long Loneliness, 133)

~Johannes Baptist Metz, “Poverty of Spirit”

We laughed together, ate together, shared with one another, toasted to Rumsfeld’s resignation—and prayed together. In many ways, I found myself more closely connected to them than I do to most of my peers. We share a deep passion for people. We have found ourselves in our respective places for similar reasons: the world suffers and we want to find ways to begin relieving that pain. They have sacrificed much more than I have for this goal—and their dedication puts me to shame. It’s a question of “positions” and “interests,” as I used to frame it in my conflict transformation trainings (its amazing when you finally start to learn what you have spent so much time teaching…)

Relationships are at the heart of peacebuilding—and as someone who rejects violence absolutely, the irony of this vocation lies in the fact that the majority of my relationships will be with people who engage in violence. As I was reminded this weekend, it is about more than dialogue, it is about friendship, meeting one another in our difference, and struggling to piece together the brokenness of the world. It’s about sitting around on a couch drinking hot chocolate, listening to Arabic music, and trying to figure out what in the hell peace means with a bunch of West Point cadets.

Sometimes I feel the Mennonite church has built too many barriers with the people we need to share with most. Perhaps we are scared—sincere and deep sharing is a two way street: you touch and are touched—and as much as change is possible for those you engage, that change is just as real for yourself. But if we are truly to move beyond dialogue, to build relationships based on love, we need to embrace our vulnerability and step into the unknown.

One of my favorite poems was written by a Salvadoran during the civil war. It’s an important reminder to find the divinity in those we sometimes dehumanize–and a call to recognize the power of our interconnectedness. There is always hope in the way our lives weave themselves together:

Like you I
Love, love life
The sweet smell of things
The sky-blue landscape of January days
And my blood boils up
And I laugh through eyes that have known the buds of tears

I believe the world is beautiful
And that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my blood doesn’t end in me
But in the unanimous blood of those who struggle for life,
Love,
The little things,
Landscape and bread,
The poetry of everyone.

~Roque Dalton

Over fall break, I found myself at a beautiful Catholic retreat center participating in mass. The priest gave a homily on the Divine within us. I felt a sense of community immediately with those present at the mass. And I prepared myself for the pain that often accompanies the Eucharist. As I went to receive my blessing, no words came, and I opened my eyes. The priest was holding out the body for me to take. It was an obvious gesture, one of inclusion, one of welcome, one of recognition. It was powerful. I let the body sit in my mouth as I prayed.

There is nowhere that feels more like home than in a Mennonite service—where hymns and love seem to pervade the church and overflow to the streets outside. “You can’t run from the Mennonite church, just like I can’t run from the Catholic church,” a good friend and former priest told me, “You are ethnically Mennonite. Embrace it.” I am Anabaptist. And I love it; I have passion for the church, for the people in this tradition. But, I have also come to love and understand my faith more wholly—what the rituals our church continues to practice mean as a result of engaging in the Catholic tradition. I am not sure I would have ever understood, at least to the extent I do now, what Mennonite meant, if I had not entered into the “Catholic world.” There is a tendency to remain where we are comfortable, and unfortunately, to dismiss anything that falls outside of those zones. I fear the joy and life I would miss if I stayed too long in those spaces of comfort. And I fear that for the Church as well. What would happen if we would step outside of our communities and spaces of comfort and engage in the Divine that pervades places seemingly different than our own? How do we remain authentically Anabaptist in a way that also embraces and engages other traditions and peoples?