Trash, Poverty, and Outrage

Trash in a Refugee Camp

 

I’ve never lived in a tent on the street or in a camp. But I have definitely spent too much time without permanent or stable housing. I couch surfed and lived out of my car off and on during my college years. Through that time, I had a trash problem. I ate at fast food joints when I had extra cash and accumulated the wrappers, I had piles of dirty clothes, and at times, pretty much all my stuff needed to fit in a small, old Hyundai.

Partly, perhaps, I am just a disorganized person. But I didn’t have a garbage can, though I did frequently bag everything up and stick it in the trunk for the next time I visited a friend where I could toss my garbage in their can. Mostly, the stress of trying to find places to stay or figure out if I could eat or any number of other problems made trash the least of my problems.

I have been hearing a lot about trash lately.

As we have come to the city in protest of the upcoming eviction of a local homeless camp, one of the issues that has become front and center is the issue of trash. There have been moments I have wished that we could be as enraged about the abysmal conditions people are forced to live as we are about trash along our shoreline.

At the same time, we all get trash is a problem.

Trash is, at least in some ways, the creation of an industrial world. And people who are poor always seem to live in the middle of trash in our globalizing world. I was just in Palestine and the mounds of trash on the edges of neighborhoods and towns was immense. The same is true of poor communities everywhere in the modern world. Poor communities in the United States.

There are many reasons and different reasons for every place. No managed landfills, not enough garbage pickup, people dumping either because they can’t afford the dump or are cutting corners. Or people not being allowed to use dumpsters, which happens frequently enough for people who live on the streets in the US. Or the stress of trying to survive.

All of us produce a huge amount of trash. People living in houses in nice neighborhoods likely produce the most trash—we just do not see it, because of a complex system of trash disposal, pickup, and dumping in huge heaps or waterways far out of public eye. And people living in houses in nice neighbors need to put very little effort into trash disposal.

In camps along the river, the folks who live there are constantly fighting a losing battle with trash, as people move in and out, as they look for places to dump it, as they constantly battle the cold and wet to stay dry and more stuff is ruined.

Even as we find better ways to deal with trash, our real outcry ought to be that people are forced to live in these conditions. No one chooses to live in muddy, wet, crappy conditions if there are better options.

Now that I have stable housing and regular garbage pick-up at my rental, I should note that I found I wasn’t such a messy person after all. I really enjoy not having trash laying around.

Unless a Corn of Wheat....

Lent always gives us the happy, cheerful readings, doesn’t it? At least it’s the last Sunday before the passion and Easter! But this Sunday, we sit with Jesus talking about death. In a few days, the church calendar will commemorate the deaths of many Salvadorans during their civil war, including the death of their archbishop. There is a Spanish artist, very popular in Latin America, named Cerrezo Barrado who draws line drawings for each of the gospel texts in the lectionary. The picture for this Sunday is deeply provocative.

It is a drawing of three bodies, lying under the ground. Above ground, the hills are covered in crosses. But over the bodies, flowers and wheat and corn are growing out of them. In typical Latin American art, it focuses on death—people die just like Jesus did every day—they die of poverty, of starvation, they die because they are killed by their governments or shot in the streets.

And yet, as Oscar Romero said before he died; “If I die, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.”

“Unless a corn of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it brings much fruit.”

Unlike El Salvador, perhaps, we in the U.S. don’t like to talk much about death in our culture, do we?

Sometimes we don’t even like to mourn, if we can help it. We grin and bear it. We try to hide death away in sterile hospitals and pretty funeral homes and out of the way homeless camps, but we avoid the topic if we can.

I have stood at many deathbeds in my life, personally and in my ministry. Most of us have lost people we love.

And death is a terrifying, mysterious, devastating thing.

And it is made all the harder because, in our culture, we never talk about death. Because we all walk around with this hidden pain and cannot talk about it. Now, I know that this sounds morbid, and I know that I am young and perhaps least qualified to talk about death. But, after all the years that I’ve seen it, I’ve come to a realization.

We never want to believe that death is a part of life. We live in a constant denial of death so often in our culture.

This Lent, one of my practices has been to think about death as holy. This is a holy thing. Death is a holy thing. It is not just terrifying, not just mysterious, not just devastating. It is also holy.

Now, in our text today, in John, Jesus talks about his death. These stories are unique to John and in this text, Jesus compares his death to the natural processes of seeds dying. Only after a seed is dead can it be planted and bring flowers and corn and wheat.

If life is sacred, then death is sacred too.

 If we thought of death as sacred, perhaps we would allow ourselves the time to mourn, because mourning is a sign of our great love for the person who has died. It is how we honor the dead.

If we thought of death as sacred, perhaps we would feel less guilt as our loved ones leave us and we are powerless to stop it.

If we thought of death as sacred, we could allow ourselves to be angry at the dead too, especially at those who once wronged us, because God can hold the person who is gone, and we don’t have to.

If we thought of death as sacred, we could better remember that those we love who die live on in the hearts of those who loved them and in the arms of the great Creator.

If we thought of death as sacred, we could one day welcome death ourselves and ask what it means to die a good death. Maybe we would be less afraid to live.

There is more to this too.

If we thought of death as sacred in our world, we would work to insure that everyone could die a good death. That is why Jesus’ death—an unjust death, a death by execution at 33 years old, was a death that entered into judgment with the powers of the world.

John Steinbeck, in the Grapes of Wrath, tells the story of how poor and hungry migrants, fleeing the dust bowl to work in California, watched all of this food—potatoes and oranges and vegetables— food that could not be sold being destroyed. He wrote; “In the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” God, through the poor, enters into judgment with a society that allows people to die unjustly.

A society that denies the sacredness of death does not prioritize that people live abundantly and die well.

I think about this in Grays Harbor—where, although we do not see death as close and intimately as El Salvador did during that terrible war, we are still struggling. Nearly 50% of our people in this county are poor by DSHS standards. That is quite the crisis— We do struggle far too often with unjust death—

And, yet, the people of this county still hope for and fight for a better life. Flowers bloom from the bodies of our dead and those who have died alone speak to us from beyond the grave. God counts their deaths as sacred even if the powers of the world do not. And their deaths enter into judgment with greed and power and apathy.

In the mountains of Chiapas in Southern Mexico, one of the Zapatista leaders said; “In the mountains of Chiapas, death was a part of daily life… Death becomes a daily fact. It loses its sacredness. ..Death, which is so close, so near, so possible, is less terrifying for us than for others. So, going out and fighting and perhaps meeting death is not as terrible as it seems. For us, at least. In fact, what surprises and amazes us is life itself. The hope of a better life.”

I think about this right now in Aberdeen. Last week, people who camp out by the river were given notice that they had until March 31 to leave their camps. The city has nowhere for these folks to go. It is one more step that displaces people even further. Now, for the growing number of people homeless in this county and in this country, death is very near all the time.

Displacing people like this adds one more layer of complication, one more layer of danger.

The people of the camps in Aberdeen have asked me, have asked us to stand with them. They are struggling for life and for survival in a world that does not see their bodies, their lives as sacred or as holy. This week, I am speaking to city council—and we ask for prayers and even your presence—asking them to either halt the eviction or give people somewhere to go. We are asking for people to be treated as sacred, as human, as people. We are asking that this city, and this county, prioritize the common good.

We want unjust death to end in this county. We want all lives to be valued. We want people have access to abundant life and a good death. We want our towns to come alive again, even in death, and the prophet Isaiah tells us that the only way that that happens is to care for the common good. To end injustice. To end homelessness. To care for each other and rebuild together.

This Lent, for ourselves and in our own lives, and for people struggling in this county….

we pray that all bodies and all people, in life and in death, will be honored as sacred, as holy.  

A CALL TO ACTION

Over the past week, people camping in Aberdeen have been issued eviction notices.

In Aberdeen, if you are really down and out, if you have lost everything, if you get kicked out of your parents’ or your friend’s place, if you need to save money to pay for a hotel during the winter, there is one last place to go. Along the Chehalis river running through town, in the ruins of old mills and pilings, people have semi-permanent camps. Some brave souls live year round in the camp. The rest migrate in and out as their fortunes change.

Every year or two, the camps are evicted. One year, residents say that the city moved in and burned everything. In the months following, people always come back. Because it truly is the last place for Aberdeen’s poorest. Over the summers I have been here, up to 70 people camp along this stretch of river.

This time, word on the street is that the city hopes that this is a permanent eviction. There are hopes for a waterfront park instead.

Over and over, people tell me; “In this city, the poor are of no importance. We are just a nuisance in the way of redevelopment.” People who camp are asking; “Where will we go?”

The city has no plan in place to answer that question.

It is in times like this, moments like this, when the church is called to make a stand.

We are only just beginning, listening to people on the ground, building relationships, researching next steps. And here is how you can join us:

 

1.      We will attend and voice our concerns at Aberdeen City Council, Wednesday, March 25. If you are local, please join us at 7:00 pm, as we ask city council to take our concerns about housing seriously.

 

2.      We are actively looking for ideas for places that camps can relocate and people can find temporary relief. Public land, private land, church parking lots. If you know any place that could work, please let us know.

 

3.      If there is a forcible eviction, we will do everything we can to be present in protest and witness. Stay tuned and please join us. We would love to have as many people as possible join. The more attention we can get to this dismantling of people’s homes, the better.

 

4.      A group of pastors in town are collaborating to put together a research project, assessing housing in Aberdeen. Who owns it? What condition is it in? How many houses stand empty? We are fundraising to support a few college interns to assist with this data gathering. We expect that this will be part of a long term effort to address our long term housing crisis.

 

5.      We ask you to join us in prayer for this city and most particularly for those who are most affected by this eviction. May God grant justice to his people!

Talking About Race

One black man is killed every 28 hours by the police. Another young man was just shot in Madison, WI last night. A few weeks ago, a young black women struggling with mental health issues was suffocated while praying. Reports coming out of Ferguson talk about extensive poverty, police targeting of black residents, and a complex system of fees, fines, and debtor’s prison. Nearly a million black men and women are in our prison system.

When white professionals, especially white church professionals, talk about race, we like to talk about our feelings. And we like to talk about interpersonal racism. Did I say the right thing? How do I feel about my mom dating a black man? These can be helpful conversations, but sometimes I think we like to pretend that racism would go away if we were all nicer to each other and just learned to get beyond questions of race. And, even more to the point, we all need to acknowledge that, honestly, when we talk about racism only in the context of our own feelings, we make it all about us.

But in the wider world, people are actually dying. I mean, black women and men are getting shot in the streets. Black communities, disproportionately poor, are denied access to the basic means of life. They are also targeted by a system that intentionally penalizes poverty. People die in this system.  

So I’d like to talk a little less about my feelings about race. We have more pressing questions, I think.

Like, how do we preach openly about racism—not just as how we feel about each other, but also the hard, systemic realities of how racism plays out in this country? Its not a comfortable sermon in many congregations.

I want to have hard conversations about how we as white professionals interact with the police. Many of us assume that calling the police in a mental health crisis or during an altercation on church property is the thing to do. For many of us, it is our first choice. Do we ever ask how this affects our role in the community or what side this puts us on in the long run with people actually struggling to survive in our communities?  

I work in majority white, poor contexts and many white church leaders I know work in poor or working class contexts. How do we not only acknowledge the racism and prejudice that is present in white communities, but also the role and function it plays? Poor and working whites have long bought into the myth of white supremacy, therefore keeping poor whites from uniting with poor people of color. How do we make this plain in our communities, how do we point this out in a way that brings repentance and change? How, for example, might Ferguson (majority black) and Aberdeen (majority white) see that they are both targets of the same system?

I want to talk about prisons. I want to talk about how religious language justifies our prison system, justifies our drug wars, a war and a system that overwhelmingly targets people of color. With the highest incarceration rates in the world, the church generally says nothing. The church is perhaps one of the few institutions in this country that could actually conceive of alternative ways of dealing with interpersonal violence.     

These are real, pressing questions. Questions that deserve our time and energy. I work in a context of crisis, in a community also struggling to survive. Perhaps it makes these questions all the more urgent for me. Too often, I sit with people dying as a direct result of racism and the criminalization of poverty. We desperately need to be talking about it.

Walking the Minefields: Lent 1

Text: Mark 1:9-15
St Columba's Kent, WA

I just returned from a trip to Palestine. While I was there, we visited the Jordan river and reaffirmed our baptismal vows in the muddy waters of the Jordan. The area was under Israeli control and as we walked back the land on either side of us was littered with minefields. Barbed wire fences marked “Danger! Mines!” surrounded us. It was a reminder of the war and the destruction experienced in that land. It was a reminder of the giant concrete wall that ran through that land, imprisoning a whole people under occupation.

 

 

At the river, we said:

“We will continue in the apostles teaching, the breaking of the bread, and prayers.”

At the river, we said:

“We will respect the dignity of every human being”

We reaffirmed our baptismal covenant.

And then we walked past a minefield to bear witness to tremendous suffering and oppression.

When Jesus was baptized in that same river 2,000 years ago, he was also living under military occupation. He was living in a land suffering from deep poverty, suffering the humiliation and the danger of living under a military occupation.

He was baptized in that land.

And, after his baptism, after his wilderness experience, he sets off to Galilee, the place he grew up, to proclaim this message:

"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

I always imagine what a message this must have been in Galilee. The place where over half of what people grew to eat was taxed and so children went hungry. The place where, at times, the roads were lined with crosses as the Roman governor executed rebellious people. The place where I imagine people were so tempted to give into despair. To give up hope.

The kingdom of God has come near.

Turn around. Turn away from despair. Turn away from hopelessness. Turn away from the messages of empire. And build a new kingdom.

And turn toward the kingdom of God, which is here, which is coming. Believe that this good news is possible. Trust and hope that it is possible.

The kingdom of God comes, and Jesus preaches it, as he walks into the minefields with his people. As he walks the way of the death with his people—he points to the coming kingdom of God. He teaches his people to live the kingdom of God in the face of empire.

In Acts, as Jesus’ followers take up his mission, they design a community where all are fed and no one goes hungry. They design a community where all are given dignity and are able to live in dignity.

As a few of you might know, I work in Grays Harbor County, in Aberdeen and Westport, both rural towns, and I run a ministry called Chaplains on the Harbor.

Our mission is to work alongside people living on the streets and in poverty. We struggle deeply with poverty in my county. 50% of people live under 200% of the poverty line. Hundreds of my brothers, my sisters live on the street and hundreds more, esp young people, couch surf. In Aberdeen, we die of treatable diseases and often live in homes and tent cities without running water, heat, or electricity.

And people have so often given into despair. 1/3 of our high schoolers struggle with severe depression. Most of the people I talk to wonder if hope is possible.

People who visit Grays Harbor or Aberdeen say; “I’ve never seen so many people, I’ve never seen so many young people who look so defeated.”

In this place, in this context, Jesus’ message is profound.

“Turn around. Repent. The kingdom of God is coming. Hope is possible. Each of you, every one of us, is a child of God and deserves dignity and life and a future.”

This Lent, in our Bible study, we are asking about our hopes and dreams for Aberdeen. People who are experiencing dire poverty are asking—how can we raise awareness of poverty in our city? How can we address the powers that be? How can we fight for better housing and a better life? How can, and people get really excited about this, how can we build a movement to end poverty in our county?

How can, in other words, how can we struggle for the kingdom of God?

What we see in Aberdeen and in Westport, is the same thing that people all over the US are experiencing. Its not only Aberdeen. In the United States, 1% of our population, 3.5 million people, are homeless in any given year. In the United States, 50% of our national population is either poor or low income, and a growing number of those people are in small towns and suburbs. Poverty is a national crisis. It is our minefield. I know you see similar realities here in Kent, in south King county, with increasing suburban poverty and homelessness.

Part of the reason I was invited to come here and speak with you is that you are hosting a men’s shelter for the month of March. First, I want to say, thank you so much for being willing to do this. The number of people who are finding themselves houseless is growing in this country. What a great Lenten practice, to live out the gospel in this way, to offer shelter to Jesus wandering on the road, to give rest to Jesus as he walks the way of the cross.

Today, it is an invitation to our baptismal covenant.

So often, in our society we frame this work as “helping others.” As “doing a Christian duty of charity.” Feeding the hungry, housing the houseless.

Our baptismal covenant frames it differently. It frames our calling, our vow to continue in the apostles teaching—those practices of living together in a world where all are fed and none are hungry, where we give up greed for wealth and power and distribute as each has need.

It frames our calling, our vow to respect the dignity of every human being. We live in a world, in a society that blames the poor for their poverty. People who have nowhere to go carry a tremendous burden of shame. A tremendous burden under a message of worthlessness and hopelessness. In my ministry, nothing has been more important than affirming people’s dignity and worth as children of God, all the beloved children proclaimed at Jesus’ baptism. The people who will come into your doors next month are people with gifts and wisdom to offer the church, perhaps more than you could ever imagine. Never forget, you will not serve them; you invite them to serve and share with you.

We are always called to join the poorest as they struggle for the kingdom. Last week, a guy in our Bible study, a man who has lost everything but his courage and his deep faith, said; “We are people—we might struggle with addiction, we might be homeless, but don’t forget that more and more Americans are just a paycheck away from the same situation. We all deserve dignity and respect.”    

This our baptismal covenant. That we walk together, brothers and sisters, housed and unhoused, the poor of the earth, into death. Into the minefields. As we turn away from the messages of our culture. As we struggle together for hope. As we struggle together for the kingdom. As we struggle together for dignity. As we struggle together to not only address the effects of poverty, but to end it.

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

Text: Mark 9:2-9 
Transfiguration Sunday

The day before I left for my pilgrimage to Palestine, I went to the theater and watched the new movie “Selma.” It tells the story of Martin Luther King Jr and his march on Selma, AL during the civil rights movement. It’s a fascinating film about an important time in our history. I was especially fascinated by the portrayal of King. He is portrayed as a man really deeply struggling with his role in the movement and he has this strong sense that he may not live much longer.

The movie ends with King reiterating his conviction that freedom is coming for his people.

Perhaps the most powerful part of the movie for me was a song performed by John Legend and Common, called “Glory.”

One day when the glory comes
It will be ours, it will be ours
Oh one day when the war is won
We will be sure, we will be sure
Oh glory (Glory, glory)
Oh (Glory, glory)

Welcome to the story we call victory
The comin' of the Lord, my eyes have seen the glory

 

It was this song that kept playing over and over in my head as I read our gospel for today and was thinking about this sermon.

Our text is the story of Jesus revealing his glory. Jesus, the poor wandering rabbi of the gospels, reveals himself to three of his disciples in glory. And he stands with a cloud of witnesses, with Moses, the ancient liberator of his people, and Elijah, the great defender of the poor. And a voice from heaven acknowledges him as the Beloved Son.

Amazing, right? Jesus revealed in glory. In the Holy Land, we visited the Church of the Transfiguration, built on where some scholars believe this happened, on Mt Tabor.

But we usually read this story as if it stands alone in the text. And it doesn’t. In every gospel this story is told, it occurs just after Jesus warns his disciples of his coming death.

Jesus has built a movement. A movement proclaiming a better kingdom, a movement of healing, a movement of liberation for the poor of Galilee. He is not stupid. He knows what happens to Galilean troublemakers. It is not much of a stretch to imagine that Jesus expected to die, expected to be arrested, expected to be executed.

Just a few verses before our text this morning, Jesus turns to his disciples and begins to teach them that he will suffer, that he will be rejected by the religious and political leaders of Jerusalem, and that he will be executed. The disciples, of course, are frightened and upset.

And so Jesus turns to them, and to the crowd around them, and says; “If anyone wants to follow me, he must take up his cross.” Now, lets be really clear. Everyone knows what Jesus means here. He is not talking about bearing burdens—a cross is a method of execution, a method used frequently in ancient Palestine by the Romans to keep people in line. Jesus is saying—in essence—be willing to go to the electric chair, or face lethal injection.

So. Jesus is revealed in glory. Only after he tells them not only is HE going to die, but that if they keep following him, they just might die too.

It’s a fitting text for this last Sunday of Epiphany, as we begin Lent, is it not?

First, Jesus calls his disciples to follow him on the way of the cross.

In Palestine, I got to walk the actual way of the cross, on the stones Jesus probably walked on the way to the cross. That was a powerful time for me.

But what kept coming to me was how many people have walked this way of the cross, walked the way of suffering and death.

Jesus was not the first or the last person crucified. What we have in Jesus is God joining a long line of people who have walked the way of suffering and death. God becomes one of us and dies at the hands of cruelty and evil and empire like one of us.

Like King and so many of the men and women and children that marched with him in Selma. Marched for freedom from empire and cruelty. In Selma, a number of people are killed during the march and its aftermath.

Like so many young black men and women today, in Ferguson or NYC.

In our Bible study in Aberdeen, the group asked me to gather dirt from the Holy Land and bring it back. So I did, and I gathered that dirt as we walked up to Jerusalem, on the way of the cross.

This Lent, on Good Friday, we are planning on walking through Aberdeen, walking our own way of the cross, acknowledging the suffering and death that people experience here and now, today.

All over the world, people still walk the way of the cross.

Here, in our county, we still walk the way of the cross.

And, yet, as soon as Jesus speaks of the cross, of coming death, he takes his most trusted disciples, goes out on a mountain, and reveals his glory.

Because, after the way of the cross comes glory.

Because, life comes out of death.

Because, freedom will come.

Because the Christian story does not end at the cross, but in glory.

Jesus, in our text, is reminding his disciples of this. Even as they look toward the way of cross, even as they face death, they hold on to the hope of triumph and glory. The kingdom of God is coming, no matter what empires do, no matter if we live or die.

Some of you might have heard the news recently that the current pope, Pope Francis, is working to make Oscar Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador, a saint.

Oscar Romero’s story and his writings have had a profound impact on me. He became archbishop in El Salvador during a time of civil war, in the late 70s, during a time when poor communities were being targeted by the government and numerous people were dying.

It was a time when the Roman Church was largely silent and even complicit in the mass suffering of the people of El Salvador. I have a friend who was in El Salvador at the time, and her stories are chilling.

So, Romero did a dangerous thing. He openly stood up to the government. He openly took the side of poor communities. And, in 1980, Romero was shot by a government agent while celebrating the Eucharist during Lent.

A few weeks before he died, he said; “This Lent, which we observe amid blood and sorrow, ought to presage a transfiguration of our people, a resurrection of our nation… Those who have Christian faith and hope know that behind this Calvary of El Salvador lies our Easter, our resurrection.”

Romero knew, even as he walked his own way to the cross with his people, the hope of the transfiguration.

We struggle sometimes to hope. We struggle to hold on the hope of transfiguration, of glory.  

I have people tell me all the time; “Nothing will ever change here. Don’t get your hopes up. Things have been bad for a long time.”

Can the kingdom really ever come?

Jesus, in our text today, points us to the long journey toward freedom, toward the kingdom of God, following Moses, following Elijah, waiting for the glory of the Lord revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.

Remember that last sermon given by King, the night before he died? His hope that his people, that African Americans in the US would find freedom.

“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

"And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

Like the disciples, King had been to the mountain and seen the glory of the Lord. And he had a rock solid hope that as he walked the way of the cross, quite literally, his people would see that glory too.

So, my brothers and sisters, as we prepare for a Holy Lent, as we prepare to at least symbolically walk the way of the cross with Jesus, lets not forget the Transfiguration. Lets not forget that our eyes have indeed seen the coming of the Lord and that he is coming in glory to give freedom and liberation to his people. To us.

Welcome to the story we call victory
The comin' of the Lord, my eyes have seen the glory.

Remember you are Dust

Ash Wednesday. We say; “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It is a day we tangibly remind ourselves of our mortality.

We all need to remember that, right?

When we imposed ashes under the bridge today, I was struck that everyone who asked for ashes deeply, viscerally understood mortality. It was a day of crisis, as are many days in this work. One woman asked for prayers for her daughter who had just lost housing and was struggling with an eating disorder. Another woman’s granddaughter had just died in a car crash. One guy was healing from a broken back and another was considering a visit to the ER for a growing infection. Death is a specter never far away on the streets and people encounter mortality often.

One woman began to sing her sorrows; “We are dying under the bridge in Aberdeen.” She told of death and sorrow, addiction and pain and her song pleaded for the world to take notice of the forgotten folks on the street. Her hoarse voice, her tears—I only wish I could have recorded what she sung.

We all need to hear the words; “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” But, under the bridge, people already know that.

The people who forget our common mortality—and by extension our common humanity—are usually those of us in positions of power. When I walked past the police station and city hall today, I thought; “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

 

In situations of oppression, when people begin to lose hope, there is hope in words that remind us that no human person or institution lasts forever. That oppression itself cannot last forever.

I thought of the towering wall running through Palestine, the wall that I just witnessed imprisoning a whole people. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

I thought of the great edifices we have built to wealth and greed in this country. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

I thought of all the prisons that dot our country, more numerous that colleges in some places, incarcerating our young people and draining hope from poor communities. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

 

This Ash Wednesday, I am thinking of death and of mortality. But I am also imagining prisons and concrete walls and jails and temples of wealth crumbling into the dust. And imagining the poor of the earth triumphant.