Two Sides of Social Justice

Yesterday I read an action research project by an inner-city Chicago teacher.  In a unit about social justice, she encouraged her class of twenty-five first and second-graders to think about fairness and compassion, and they responded accordingly:

If I were President I would tell the builders who build houses for rich people to build the homeless houses and I would give them food and a car.

If I were President I would take care of lots of people. People would have 3 day weekends. There would be no school for a week.

If I were President I would give money to school and help all the people in the world improve their schools.

If I were President I would make things good.  I would love the world and I would buy anything for kids and I would get people homes.

Part of me read these sentiments with a great deal of cynicism.  How sad that these children view government as a benevolent, even indulgent caretaker – that rather than giving people freedom to live their lives, they wanted the President to bestow material comfort upon them. 

The Occupy Wall Street seems, at its core, to have a similar idea: they want to stop the most successful people in society from continuing to be successful by spending their money on the foolish and hapless masses who have financially gotten in over their heads.  This (besides the pretentions of activism and the lack of hygiene and decorum) keeps me from being too enthusiastic about their mission and the press that’s glued to it.

So I was pretty shocked, later that evening, to read the following in the Psalms:

Why dost thou stand afar off, O Lord?
Why dost thou hide Thyself in times of trouble?
In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
let them be caught in the schemes which they have devised.
For the wicked boasts of the desires of his heart,
and the man greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
In the pride of his countenance the wicked does not seek him;
all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
His ways prosper at all times;
thy judgments are on high, out of his sight;
as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
He thinks in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
He sits in ambush in the villages;
in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the hapless,
he lurks in secret like a lion in his covert;
he lurks that he may seize the poor,
he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
The hapless is crushed, sinks down,
and falls by his might.
He thinks in his heart, “God has forgotten,
he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”
Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Thy hand;
forget not the afflicted.

If God’s not too good to care for the poor, maybe we should think about doing the same.

Clay Stealing Clay

My favorite Synaxarion of the church year was yesterday, when we celebrated the raising of Lazarus.  I actually missed it because I was late (!) but my dear friend Jeanine read it to me today as I was filing music at church:

Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary, the friends of the Lord Jesus, had given Him hospitality and served Him many times (Luke 10:38-42; John 12:2-3). They were from Bethany, a village of Judea. This village is situated in the eastern parts by the foothills of the Mount of Olives, about two Roman miles from Jerusalem.

When Lazarus -- whose name is a Hellenized form of "Eleazar," which means "God has helped" -- became ill some days before the saving Passion, his sisters had this report taken to our Savior, Who was then in Galilee. Nonetheless, He tarried yet two more days until Lazarus died; then He said to His disciples, "Let us go into Judea that I might awake My friend who sleepeth." By this, of course, He meant the deep sleep of death.

On arriving at Bethany, He consoled the sisters of Lazarus, who was already four days dead. Jesus groaned in spirit and was troubled at the death of His beloved friend. He asked, "Where have ye laid his body?" and He wept over him. When He drew nigh to the tomb, He commanded that they remove the stone, and He lifted up His eyes, and giving thanks to God the Father, He cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth." And he that had been dead four days came forth immediately, bound hand and foot with the grave clothes, and Jesus said to those standing there, "Loose him, and let him go." This is the supernatural wonder wrought by the Saviour that we celebrate on this day.

According to an ancient tradition, it is said that Lazarus was thirty years old when the Lord raised him; then he lived another thirty years on Cyprus and there reposed in the Lord. It is furthermore related that after he was raised from the dead, he never laughed till the end of his life, but that once only, when he saw someone stealing a clay vessel, he smiled and said, "Clay stealing clay." His grave is situated in the city of Kition, having the inscription: "Lazarus the four days dead and friend of Christ."

Each year during this last week of the Lenten journey, I marvel even more deeply at the Church's wisdom in placing these stepping stones in front of us, one after the other: miracles, signs, wonders and always the deepest and most pure love.

A-Plus (Hold the A)

Four and a half days into Lent, and it already feels like it's been two weeks.  Not the food thing; I have plenty of ideas and am actually worried I won't have time to try them all before the fast ends.  It's the routine that feels settled.  I think it helps that it's been raining a lot; yesterday it was so delightfully gloomy and drizzly that I put off getting out of bed until the last possible moment, and then ten minutes beyond that.  It just feels natural, when it's wet and gray outside, to eat simply and less, and concentrate on reading and sewing and praying. Especially praying: the prayers from Great Compline follow me throughout the day, and long sections of the Psalter comfort me at night.  I am surrounded, wrapped in the language of the Saints.

So I haven't written here. I've been thinking, from general to specific, about my purpose on Earth; my vocations as wife, teacher and musician; and my humble spot here on the Internet.  What am I doing?  What would I like to be doing?

When I think about blogs I admire, it's not the ones that are laugh-out-loud funny, although I do enjoy those occasionally; it's blogs like Tartine Gourmande and Pleasant View Schoolhouse.  I don't have a lot in common with a French food stylist or a Southern mom of five, but their posts just exude beauty, calm, life and especially gratitude -- a sense of contentedness with place and time, whether it's on a blissful tropical vacation or in a child's sickroom.

I know I can't imitate what these bloggers (and many more like them, I'm sure) have done, but I can try to add more of it to the world we all share.  So, for Lent, I am giving up griping, even humorous and good-natured griping, in this space.  Grammatical errors, bureaucratic squabbles and harried helicopter parents are off-limits; instead, I'm going to try to show you why it is that when I can sit still long enough to think about it, I know that I lead a life that is more blessed than I could possibly have imagined.

For instance, a few days ago, I was reminded of a wonderful technique for encouraging students to respond to literature.  Instead of saying, "Which parts did you like / dislike / not understand?" simply have students highlight those parts.  Then read the piece out loud, instructing them to join you for whatever words or phrases they have selected.  The effect is very powerful, since they begin to see that many of their favorite parts are shared by their classmates; they worry less about "getting it" and start to enjoy the words themselves.

So, when we read "How it Feels to be Colored Me," an essay by the author whose seminal work will be the focus of the next few weeks, it gave me chills to hear so many young voices read with me:

I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.

No one on earth ever had a greater chance for glory. The world to be won and nothing to be lost.

Music. The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched him. He has only heard what I felt. He is far away and I see him but dimly across the ocean and the continent that have fallen between us.

I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads.

"What do you think that means?" I asked afterwards.  Lots of shrugs.  "I just liked it."  A confident lady with a pretty necklace: the image hooked them, and we could puzzle about semantics later.

For this, I will gladly endure comma splices.  But I won't mention them again.  Not until Pascha, at least.

Find and Replace

Anything worth doing is equal parts passion and paperwork.  Cooking dinner: balancing flavors and improvising with ingredients; also chopping, sifting and washing.  Leading singers: discovering hidden talents, being blessed by the prayerful outpouring of song; also lugging binders of music to and fro and poring over rubrics and service outlines.  It was in the thick of the latter that I found myself for most of yesterday.

When I'm on top of things, I try to do a month's worth of services at a time; this enables me to get an overview of what's coming up, prepare and rehearse music with my chanters, and generally be more efficient than I would be week by isolated week.  I'm especially grateful for Microsoft Word's "Find . . . Replace" command.  I can put in "Tone 1 . . . Tone 2" or "Publican and Pharisee . . . Prodigal Son" and suddenly the outline is transformed; a few more tweaks and it's ready to go.

Lent begins in a little over an hour, and the services of the Church have been anticipating this for many weeks: commemorations like the aforementioned parables help bring to mind our feebleness and need for Christ's healing mercies.  These last two weekends have been the most intense of all.  Last week was Judgment Sunday, when we heard the Gospel of the Sheep and the Goats: "Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to Me."  That was the day we gave up meat; and today, when we give up all other animal products (and wine and oil, except on weekends) we heard the Gospel of Forgiveness: "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you."  Today is Forgiveness Sunday.

So as I made up the bulletin, and the dialog box prompted me to enter text, the irony was not lost on me.  Find Judgment; replace with Forgiveness.  It's a good motto to live by, during Lent or any other season.

Brothers and sisters of the Internet, I repent of all my hasty and self-centered speech.  Kindness and consideration are not my strong points, as you well know.  I pray you have not been offended by anything I have said here, but if you have, the fault is mine, so please, forgive me.  May this season be a blessing to you, and please, pray for me.

Rejoice With Me

What woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?  And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost."

On the way home from church today, I suddenly remembered that on the day in question, I had slipped and fallen on the wet floor in the school cafeteria.  Several other teachers hurried over to help me pick up my things and make sure I was all right, but I wondered whether my wallet had somehow escaped from my bag and gotten lost in the shuffle.

So I stopped by school, thanking God I had requested a master key to enter after hours.  It was dark and silent as I walked down the hallway toward the cafeteria, descended the wooden steps and turned on the lights.  There was the treacherous corner, now dry and clean.  I knelt down on the floor, peered under the ice cream freezer and burst out laughing -- my wallet was right there, untouched and just barely out of sight.

Some may call this discovery was a triumph of logic, but I know better.  Thank you for your prayers.