Babel

The tower of Babel in Genesis 11 reminds us that our diversity, in its humanness, can be confusing and painful, but it also reminds us where God can be found - as we try to understand and know each other more fully.

There are plenty of towers in New York City, a reminder perhaps that we can reach the skies when we work together (or apart). For me this fact as confusing as the diverse peoples who inhabit these towers – and indeed the fact of so many who don’t – because they can’t.

Sitting on floor 17 of one particular apartment, looking down, I don’t think that being in this particular tower brings me closer to God as some of the Babylonians might have hoped their tower did. In fact, if anything the further I am up this tower, the more there seems to be a barrier for me to connect with the people who seem so very far below me.

What connects us most fully to God is not trying to reach further and further to the sky - to create small gods of ourselves. Rather we find God when we really meet and encounter each other – at ground level, as equals. When we spend time together, when we look into the face of each other and listen.

Fr Steve Holton drew my attention to a passage in the Koran which resonates with this: ‘O mankind! We created you from male and female and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that you may despise each other)’ (Sura Hujurat, verse 13). This really struck me – difference is created that we might know each other. Returning to the tower of Babel, what if God has created us to have different languages and dwell in different cultures and lifestyles, so that we might be different and so come together in order to know each other. What if by knowing each other – we are in fact brought into a deeper place to know God? Isn't this what the incarnation teaches us, as we spend time looking and living into the face of Christ?

We are changed by encountering difference – for better or worse. Within this we have the opportunity to know others and to know God far more deeply.

Silent Racism

Jeremiah, based at Riverside Church on the edge of Harlem, is exploring what silent racism means, through the Theatre of the Oppressed program there. Inspired by Barbara Trepagnier’s book and work on ‘Silent Racism’, the group are voicing feelings and reflections on their own experiences and their own prejudices in encounters with those of a different race. Here it is not necessarily about what is said but what isn’t – the honesty of being able to admit the bigotries and biases that are in us, when we are honest enough to confront them – and from here to act in a way that tackles these.

In her book, Trepagnier argues that if we are not proactively finding ways like this to take a stand against racism in our own lives, we are part of the problem. She suggests that the slow and steady trickle of silent racism in our societies is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome racism as a whole.

One obvious example of this in New York are the obvious fewer opportunities that Latino and African Americans tend to have, living in poorer, ghettoized areas of city, often with poorer educational facilities. The odds are stacked against the young people who grow up in these communities – and so Fr. Steve Holton has referred to those who lead a way out of it as ‘warriors of the dream’. 50% of these young people will drop out of high school before they graduate. This is often due to a need for a young person to go out and earn money for the family, but with access to only low paid jobs, drugs seems to be the best way to gain a dependable income, and to have a close circle of support. Manhattan has the highest number of arrests and parolees of any county in America – these are predominately young men of colour. In being re-released these young men enter back into these situations of poverty, unemployment and unstable housing – leading to a much higher probability of re-offending. Today an article on CNN website states  "The fact that there are more black men imprisoned today than were enslaved in 1850 signals that the transformation from chattel to criminal is complete when it comes to the black male body. In this regard, the Prison Industrial Complex serves as the new slavocracy. It maintains the narrative of this country that the black body is not meant to be free. It returns the black body to its "proper" space, and the body perceived as most dangerous, that is the black male body, is now adequately contained and patrolled." This reads as shocking, but it also speaks truth, the article goes on to identify this incarcerated and abused black body with the body of Christ. The truth is that in Harlem a third of the paroles will be re-incarcerated within a year and 42% within 3 years. One seven block stretch in Harlem is known an “re-entry corridor” where one in 20 men has been incarcerated. These issues seem at times too huge to tackle, but Trepagnier’s work encourages us that small actions each day that work to conquer our own prejudices and question the injustice around us make the journey towards change – indeed, this is one of the only ways in which this can happen. We are challenged to act radically to a radical phenomenon that faces us, to be where Christ is. As Kelly Brown Douglas suggests, Jesus would reply: "Running down a Baltimore street, On a Florida sidewalk. As you did it to one of these black male bodies you did it to me."

Check out http://rethinkingreentry.blogspot.com/, a coalition of community organizations working to change the trend of cyclical incarceration in Harlem.

Theatre of the Oppressed

This week I was able to spend some time with Jeremiah Kyle Drake at Riverside Church, New York. Jeremiah is the Theatre of the Oppressed co-ordinator for the church. Theatre of the Oppressed is a tool and philosophy that I trained in some years ago and is an incredible way to creatively facilitate dialogue between people. The practice was developed by Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal and influenced by the work of the educator and theorist Paulo Freire. The practice is a means by which men and women are able to become more fully human by dealing critically and reflectively with their reality; acting it out and listening to others do the same. Put simply, it is dialogue. This process invites a deeper awareness of how we all, each day, are part of participating in the transformation of our world, for better or worse.

Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) recognises each human being as theatre – a person sees the situation and sees one’s self in the situation – we are always at once actor and spectator. Once we realise this, we realise the power that our actions have in our world, and so with that our power to help ourselves and others. If we cannot exercise this right to act and to have dialogue – to allow others to understand us or our cause then we are oppressed. If we deny others their chance to speak, or refuse to listen to them, we oppress them.

With this the Theatre of the Oppressed is a space in which we are invited to realise who we are and the roles we play in situations of oppression in our world. It is also a place to think and feel our way into acting in a way that overcomes this. TO is a rehearsal for reality which itself is reality also.

I’m conscious that as I have been reflecting on this, the riots and peaceful protests continue in Baltimore. Martin Luther King once said that riots are the voice of the voiceless. So many of the people, mainly young people involved have felt that their voice has gone completely unheard. One youthworker described going into a school in Baltimore recently and asking in an assembly who in the school had lost someone they knew to violence in the city: everyone put up their hand. The youthworker then asked the young people to put up their hand if they had been on a protest or been represented on a protest against this injustice: no hand went up. Theatre of the Oppressed is just one, very simple way in which those who feel voiceless can discover their voice, and its clear that these methods are needed, not just in Baltimore, but in all of our communities, for the injustices that lie unspoken.

Jeremiah articulated to me the ways in which the Theatre of the Oppressed’s own philosophy and principals are actually those of the Gospel.  There are principals that seek to building a world where all are invited to ‘participate in human society as an equal, to respect differences and be respected’  and to become more fully human. Here dialogue prevails and work is for peace. TO allows people to be acting subjects of their own lives and its intention is always to develop societies that flourish and are just. The more I reflected on this the more I wonder that if these principles do not seem familiar to our church life, we probably need to take more action than we thought.

Diversity in the City

We have arrived in New York, the second of the three cities we plan to visit. Suddenly several things strike us about this city. Opening my mouth no one bats an eyelid. No longer do Americans ask either me or my 2 year old to say something in her ‘cute’ British accent, its nothing new. New York, like many major cities, is a melting pot of accents, nationalities, cultures and races. This diversity is amazing and beautiful – its one of the things that I love about being in a big city. But this diversity is also something that invites conflict. It is something that we as human beings always seem to struggle with and communicate well.

Living 2 mins walk from ground zero and the museums and memorials attributed to 9/11 is one huge reminder of groups of people who do not understand each other and the conflict that follows that. St Paul’s Chapel, part of Trinity Wall Street was meters away from the Twin Towers when they fell. The church acted as a ‘safe haven’ for 9/11 rescue workers, but its work continues after all the debris has gone. The chapel holds prayer for peace and reconciliation every day, a constant reminder that there is more work to be done, that conflict continues.

In our cities we deal with the diversity we find in different ways. There are plenty of congregations which seem to attract the same race or culture, class or interest group. There are other churches that pride themselves on their diversity and their ability to welcome difference, or to be inclusive in a particular way. Wherever we are on the continuum, the fact that diversity exists in our city will always bring conflict where there is no dialogue. If we do not work and pray for dialogue and peace we are negating our responsibility as peacemakers and creation builders – there really is no neutral that comes from doing nothing. In the days that follow I will be looking at and reflecting on some practical ways that churches are working with diversity in New York City.