September 9-13, 1971 Attica uprising at the NY state prison. "Responding to rumors of the impending torture of a prisoner, about one thousand of the prison's approximately 2,200 inmates rioted and seized control of the prison, taking thirty-three guards hostage." (wikipedia)
September 11, 1973 military junta in Chile led by Pinochet overthrows Socialist president Salvador Allende. His niece, the author Isabel Allende, says that when her phone rang on the morning 9/11/01, she at first thought it was to mark 'their' 9/11 tragedy. This is the one where thousands of dissidents were piled into the Chile Stadium (recently renamed the Victor Jara stadium) and many were tortured.
anyway, to the extent that i thought of 9/11 today, i thought of those things. i planned to join a prayer service organized by Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice at the Palo Alto Friends meeting house. i was going mostly to support a friend who helped organize it. i noticed that i was being--ornery at the clergy potluck dinner before the service. i hadn't joined forces with this group, so i was insistent on putting them down in my head and in snide comments to my friend.
then, right at the end of the meal/meeting, the tide turned. i spoke about how it's difficult (sometimes prohibited) to talk about peace and justice issues in my parish. we have people with different viewpoints and commiments, so we social justice types do a lot of sitting on our hands. i said i wanted to work on ways for our congregations to create a "climate of moral dialogue." if we can't hash out moral decisions and speak the truth and disagree with love within the church which is a "circle of care," where the heck can we? how might we start that conversation? (quotes are from an amazing talk i heard last week from Alexa Salvatierra, director of CLUE-CA (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice). one of the UU ministers said, "yes, our closing off from each other in fear is useful to abusive systems of empire, since we're easily manipulated when we're alone and afraid." now i was invested.
we headed over to the meeting house proper. i liked the space, and appreciated the gathering music and the muezzin, the Muslim call to prayer. i was opening up. the Quaker host explained how the 15 minutes of silent worship "in the manner of Friends" would work. you sit in silence to better listen to your inner voice. when moved, you may stand and share your thoughts. he said that we were to leave silence "before you speak, after you speak, and speak what is given to you (in inspiration) and no more." he was so clear, and the practice is so clear, i thought "i should do this more often!"
a leader of the local jewish community spoke. i travelled back in my mind to 2001. the evening of september 11 i joined an impromptu service at the jewish house on campus at Vassar. i was over there a lot after that. tonight i felt some nostalgia for that community and for jewish ritual in general, since i haven't done any in a long time.
one of the key leaders of MVPJ is Samina Faheem Sundas, an amazing woman who runs an organization called American Muslim Voice. She spoke about how she was in Costco on 9/11 when she first heard the news, and she was crying. someone (a white person) asked her why she was crying. the questioner had already put her in the 'enemy' category, and honestly couldn't understand why she would cry at the suffering of someone from the other camp. Samina is about to receive the Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize from the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
during silent worship the first person to speak was the leader guy who had introduced us to the practice earlier. i liked what he had to say. i was reeling from listening to Samina, whose words had given me the shivers. my internal dialogue after he spoke was pretty predictable:
"should i say something?"
"no, no one else is, the point is mostly to be silent and listen. you're not listening very well."
"what would i say if i did say something?"
"you don't want to be one of the talkative people. you'd just be doing it for the attention."
"but i am thinking about A20..."
i was remembering the A20 mobilization, my introduction to what i then thought was a more or less unified thing i called simply 'the movement,' a big rally and march organized by ANSWER and others, in DC in the spring of '02.
suddenly i'm standing and i'm saying, "a few months after 9/11, i went to a big protest. it was my introduction to the movement which i feel is very important and which i feel part of tonight. the next morning, the first school day/work day after i got home, i wrote this in my journal:
i don't get up in the morning because i'm tired of sleeping. i get up because i have something to do, something i value above sleeping.
"that weekend the world outside my ivory towers touched me for the first time, and i learned i had something to say and to do about it."
we sang some more and Samina summoned me to help hand out candles, and stand with her at the center of the vigil.
i am so grateful.
4 comments:
Preach it!
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