Week of Compassion

Vy Nguyen is a long-time friend of First Church Berkeley and the Executive Director of Week of Compassion. He formally worked for Church World Service. In that previous role, he was a guest in our congregation several times.

In this short video he shares some of his story of escaping Viet Nam, ending up in a refugee camp in Thailand and then making his way to the United States.

Week of Compassion is a program of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and supports refugee assistance, emergency relief and sustainable development.

”Be Brave“

by First Church Emerging Leader Matt Boswell

“Be brave!” The words of my 2 1⁄2 year-old concluded my recent sermon. Clara, like Jonah, is on a journey of growing in courage. I believe our health, our happiness and our ability to love and be loved are heavily dependent on the continual deepening of virtues like courage. To what does courage call us as a Christian community?

Courage calls us to humility about what we know and
 can know. Courage is an invitation to mystery, to endure the limits of being a particular human, trapped in one body in one location in one community in one country in one era in one… you get the point. It takes courage to say “I’m in!” and believe in something, even if that mythic “certainty” eludes us. And it takes courage to admit that we have much to learn.

Courage calls us to fight for the good of others. Courage calls us not simply to feel something but to do something, at a potential cost to ourselves. We may show our support for particular causes and resistance to particular injustices, but until we are moved to particular actions, our courage may be incomplete. Where the loving and just treatment of others
is at stake, courage can give us the strength to do something about it.

Courage calls us to risk loss. Standing up for something we believe in brings the risk of losing status, approval, our connection to others. The Church is a living tradition, and things that are alive are constantly changing even while retaining their apparent form. A courageous Christian community can maintain its fidelity to what God seems to care about while courageously letting go of certain approaches, perspectives and practices when it becomes clear they don’t “fit” the spirit of love, justice and care.

Courage might call us to pursue social change more indirectly. I absolutely believe in direct confrontation, explicitly naming what’s broken and calling for our leaders, policymakers and fellow citizens to do something about it. But there’s something to be said for that Gandhian insight — to be the change you want to see in the world. For example, as an “open and affirming” community, maybe courage calls us to enhance our advocacy for marriage equality by pouring energy into our own relationships. This may be the riskier, more terrifying path to persuading people of what marriage is all about — to be an example of that for which we are fighting.

Loving Our World-Wide Neighbors

by First Church Senior Minister Patricia de Jong

“It was un-American; it was unbiblical; it was inhumane.” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York wrote these words in response to the busloads of mothers and children in Murietta that were turned back  toward the border as protesters shouted to them, “Go home!” Cardinal Dolan grasps the sorrow and even shame many people of faith are experiencing these days as we confront the meaning of the Gospel imperative “to love our neighbor as ourselves” on the US border and in Gaza and in the Middle East. Not only do we have difficulty with the political events of the past few weeks, but many of us have trouble making moral sense out of the way children are being treated in the hot spots around the globe.

In the past two weeks, we have stood silently as a body during worship in order to prayerfully protest the deportation of children who are fleeing violence in their own countries and have arrived at our borders with nothing more than hope for a chance at survival. We’ve prayed for peace in the Israel/Palestine and especially for the bombings to stop in the Gaza Strip. And we have received a free will offering for East Bay Sanctuary Covenant and the important work they are doing in the East Bay with refugees right now. It doesn’t seem like much when we imagine the enormity of human suffering that is occurring; but we also know that a stance of grace and compassion is vital to the process of moving forward to justice and healing.

Each small act of intention and attention is powerful. Through the simple act of prayer or writing a check or emailing our representatives, we are making a difference. We simply must not allow violence or division or ignoring the plight of children to become our new normal; as people of faith we have a calling to honor creation through the honoring of each other as God’s own beloved children.

In the coming days, pray for the children, our own and especially those at risk. If you feel like it and are able, write a check supporting an agency that helps children, here or anywhere in the world, but especially the troubled spots. Send an email to your representative reminding them of the importance of the welfare of children to the future well being of the planet. And pay attention to and be thankful for a child or a young person in your life; they are wise and wonderful and will remind you of our calling to care for all the children of the world.

More about First Church Berkeley…

Young Ones Fleeing Central America

by Patricia de Jong, Senior Minister

Many of us having been reading and hearing stories about the wave of children and youth from Central American who are crossing over the boarder into the southwest of the United States, many of them unaccompanied. But First Church member Jennifer Fisher has taken the next step—encouraging our congregation to take concrete action to address the needs of these young immigrants. And she will get in a truck full of supplies and drive if that is the right thing to do.

Jennifer’s desire to respond has been galvanizing and a meeting has been set up for Wednesday, July 16 at 7:00 pm in the Sunburst Room. Anyone who is interested in learning more about this challenging situation and to discern the best way for First Church to respond are invited to attend.

Although this surge has ignited much political debate, Jennifer has her eyes squarely on the human story:  “Everyone can argue both sides of the immigration issue, that does not matter. What matters is these kids have traveled hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles on a rough road to get here and many are victims of violence, upheaval and economic hardships in their country. People willing to make that kind of hazardous, unsafe, dusty, dry, and arduous trip are usually doing it to save their lives. ”

In testimony before Congress administration members described the situation this way: “We face an urgent situation in the Rio Grande Valley Last fiscal year, Customs and Border Protection apprehended more than 24,000 unaccompanied children at the border. By mid-June of this fiscal year, that number has doubled to more than 52,000. Those from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras make up about three quarters of that migration…[T]his is a humanitarian issue as much as it is a matter of border security. We are talking about large numbers of children, without their parents, who have arrived at our border—hungry, thirsty, exhausted, scared and vulnerable. How we treat the children, in particular, is a reflection of our laws and our values.”

This wave of immigration has excited strong feelings. I heard on the radio that at one rally protesting the arrival of these children a woman held a sign that said “Not our children, Not our problem.” I must emphatically disagree. Jesus clearly calls us to care for the hungry and the thirsty. We are all neighbors and when our neighbors are in need, we are called to act.

Join Jennifer and I on Wednesday night and be prepared to respond to a special call for funds to provide relief for at least some of these children.

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Here are some online resources about the wave of young immigrants coming to the US from Central America:

•   A comprehensive article called “Life Ended There” by Susan Terrio, professor of anthropology at Georgetown University, author of Whose Child Am I? Unaccompanied, Undocumented Children in U.S. Immigration Custody: http://tinyurl.com/lifeendedthere

•   An article about how social service agencies that work with the immigration community in San Francisco are being stretched by this situation: http://tinyurl.com/agenciesstretched

•   Transcript of testimony by administration officials at a hearing titled “Challenges at the Border”: http://tinyurl.com/challengesattheborder

•   A clear picture of the increase in this sort of immigration based on data from Customs and Border Protection: www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-border-unaccompanied-children

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More about First Church Berkeley…

 

Palm Sunday Poem

Tess Taylor has been serving as Poet Laureate at First Church Berkeley since the summer of 2013. She has composed several poems based on the liturgical seasons which are read in worship and shared on the First Church website.

This is the poem that Tess wrote for Palm Sunday 2014, which she read in worship on April 13.

AFTER PALMS

And now the holy week begins
again in parade turned prison march.
In the fickle world abandoning.

The news: this year again
evildoers keep the upper hand,
a fashionable cure-all reveals itself as poison,

the blatherers jockey for position.
Absurd politicians parrot hate.
We find we’ve come too early or too late—

we predictably deny you
or linger on in some mean-spirited spot.
When called, we do not recognize you:

You come: We spend your visit cleaning house.

And still you march towards trial.
And still we stay trapped in empty tombs.
And still we do not reconcile.

And when we look to find you, you
point elsewhere, first  from the unearthly back to earth,
first to death, then baffled, back to life:

Because you are the transformed, transforming sign:
The parade, also the penitent,
the riddle, also the riddler.

Storyteller: you become the parable.
You enfold the death inside the rose
and also hold the rose within  the ash

and now appear as worm, as bone, as flesh
as gaping holes within the winding sheet.
And of these you are none & all:

because again you are the blooming plant—

…………….

Find out more about how First Church Berkeley uses the arts in worship and other aspects of community life…

Photo of Tess by Lisa Beth Anderson

Mother’s Day

by Senior Minister Patricia de Jong

As Mother’s Day approaches, I walk by the card aisle at the drugstore and contemplate the card I will not buy this year. Since my own mother has been dead for many years, I am tempted to skip this day altogether, but there are many women in this community and in my life who embody the best of what I believe it means to be a mother, sister, daughter and woman and friend. I am thankful for them all.

Mother’s Day has become for me, a time of quiet celebration of what it means to be a good and courageous human being in whatever life circumstance we find ourselves. The original idea for Mother’s Day emerged out of the Civil War, with a group of grieving mothers resolving to work together to abolish war. The idea of a day for mothers was in response to the heavy toll that war had extracted from their lives. Later, as it became more commercial, people lost sight of the desire for peace and justice that originally grounded a day for mothers.

The origins of this day were centered around the need of women to create a better world for their children rather than becoming the focus of attention and adulation. Perhaps we can reclaim an important aspect of the legacy of those brave women who came before us by intentionally lifting up peace and justice this Mother’s Day.

I’d rather not give this day away to Hallmark or Flowers.com or even a great place to have brunch. Instead, I’d like to lift up a prayer for the mothers and fathers of those 270 Nigerian girls who were kidnapped from their school three weeks ago. They still don’t know what happened to the girls or if they will see their children again. And not so far from us, in the Ukraine, the madness of war has once again threatened to destroy the lives of children and families and a whole nation. And our own Mother Earth is ravaged by our lack of conscious attention to the ways we have ignored and abused her.

Every time I baptize a baby, child or adult, I say “Mother of us all,” to remind us that we are held by a powerful and gentle God who broods and frets over us like a mother hen. Yet she also calls forth from us the best of what is means to be a child of God—courage, steadiness of commitment to the common good, lovingkindness and a willingness to act for justice and peace.

However you celebrate this day, may the Mother of Us All shine in you and give you courage and strength for your life work.

Find out more about First Church Berkeley…

Climate Change

by Phil Porter, Minister of Art & Communication

The weather in the Bay Area is deceptively mild.

This part of the country has managed to avoid the dramatic “in your face” weather events that other areas are experiencing—events that are being linked to climate change and the use of fossil fuels. Our challenges are more subtle but no less important—a drought that is being described as the most serious since 1850.

In Australia, however, climate reality is uncomfortably obvious. Last year in Sydney there was one day when the temperature was over 110 degrees. It was not figuratively, but literally, like a sauna.

This year while I was in Sydney, the weather in Adelaide (where I would be going next) was hitting record highs. At one point Adelaide was the hottest city in the world. I joked that I had sent off my advance team to cool things down before I arrived. It was cooler when I got there, but on the day I left to return home, you could once again begin to feel the oppressiveness of the heat. I escaped just in time. Or is there really an escape?

As President Obama proclaimed in his 2014 State of the Union message “…the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. And when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did.”

Is there any more fundamental issue facing us today than to address the global threat of climate change? And as progressive Christians, given our deep commitment to the common good and the stewardship of the earth, can we stand by wringing our hands rather than taking to the streets both literally and figuratively?

Fossil fuels are limited and will run out. There is no future in oil. While in the US, the market seems to be turning away from coal (though probably not fast enough), tons of coal is being mined in Australia and sent to China. But the science tells us that if the path we take is to keep extracting and burning the remaining fossil fuels—releasing carbon into the atmosphere—the result will be a significant increase in the global temperatures which would take thousands of years to reverse. We must leave the carbon in the ground. This is a hard reality for the carbon-addicted.

Without my faith, I would be tempted to despair. The situation seems dire and critical. In this country, when we need leadership at the highest level to address this problem, our political system seems shockingly inadequate to the task. Will reason prevail? Will we speak truth to power and reverse damaging trends?

I am still hopeful that this is possible, but only with the help of God. I guess this is taking the authority question to the next level.

On February 16, First Church will participate in a National Preach-In on Climate Change organized by Interfaith Power and Light. Senior Minister Patricia de Jong will address the issue at 9 am and First Church scientist and theologian Rev. Dr. Robert Russell will preach at 11 am. A related Learning Hour will be held at 10 am in the Large Assembly. More about events on February 16…

Come. Pray. Hope.

More about First Church Berkeley, United Church of Christ

Gracias a la Vida!

Joanne Brown is a writer, poet, teacher and member of the First Church community. She spends her time in both Oaxaca, Mexico and Berkeley, California. She shares her reflections and poetry on her blog Transitions and Transformations: the beauty and the terror.

Joanne also teaches writing workshops using the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) method. She will be starting a new workshop series “Write for Your Life” at First Church on September 9, 2013.

She wrote this entry “Gracias a la Vida” in May of 2012.

………………….

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto
Me dio dos luceros que cuando los abro
Perfecto distingo lo negro del blanco …

Thank you life, you have given me so much
You gave me two eyes which when I open them
I can distinguish perfectly between black and white …

– Violeta Parra 

Last evening a friend and I went to see a play about the life of the late Chilean singer, songwriter, folklorist, and visual artist Violeta Parra. She’s known as the mother of the New Chilean Song Movement, and she revived the Peña, a community center for arts and political activism. I never knew that La Peña on Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley owes its name and mission to Violeta.

Just before her suicide in 1967 at age 50, Parra wrote the beautiful song Gracias a la Vida  (Thank you life), which has been popularized by Joan Baez (watch Joan sing it!), Mercedes Sosa, Luciano Pavarotti, and many others. It played as we waited for the drama to begin, and my friend said to me, “I don’t always feel grateful for what life has given me, and I wish I did.” Her longing played across my dreams last night …

By dawn I asked myself, Am I grateful for what life has given me?

In my mid-forties, when I was lonely in my marriage, on the brink of leaving it, and desperate to find a spiritual home, the people of First Church Berkeley lifted me up. There was community, new friends, song; a way to see the commonality in all beings, and the truth that we need each other to live. In all of this, I recognized something so much bigger than my one life. First church planted in me the seeds of gratitude!

Surely gratitude for a difficult childhood or divorce doesn’t come easy. But I suppose what I’ve been given has made me who I am at this moment and who I may yet become.  I’ve traveled beyond past miseries with the help of so many friends, and they, like a loving family, live always in my heart (and on Skype!) though I make my life now in Mexico and they are far away. And even with so much distraction, violence, and treachery in the world, I know if I can sing, pray, watch the beauty of a sunrise, a child’s smile, or a hummingbird’s dance, I’m on my way to gracias a la vida!

According to Gratefulness.org, the practice of gratefulness moves people “to live in the light of all we’ve been given.” They say that can be a force for personal change — inspiring compassion and generosity — as well as for world peace.

Heady stuff! May gratitude and peace be with you.

More reflections and poetry from Joanne Brown…

More about First Church Berkeley…

Human Trafficking: Ten Ways to Respond

On Sunday, September 30, 2012, Shelly Dieterle, Young Adult Minister at First Church Berkeley, preached a sermon at the 9 am service that included an exploration of the US and global issue of human trafficking. It was part of a series of sermons under the theme “Caring for Each Other, Caring for the Earth.” The subject for the morning was “Seeking Justice and Reconciliation.”

In the sermon, Shelly offered 10 different ways one might respond to this troubling issue:

1. Learn more at slaveryfootprint.org and talk with others about what you learn
2. Speak up and insist that the clothes you wear, the food you eat and the products you buy are made free of forced labor
3. Shop responsibly. Learn what companies to avoid and which ones are moving toward economic, social, and environmental responsibility
4. Become a pen pal to the girls in Mark Pham’s Bocochiem Project, emchi.org, in Southern Vietnam. Mark is the nephew of Louise Halsey and visited with us that Sunday. The Em Chi Initiative prevents young girls in rural southern Vietnam from exploitation.
5. Openly and actively endorse Proposition 35, A Ban on Human Trafficking and Sex Slavery, and work towards its passage in November
6. Support Mark’s Bocochiem Project, EmChi, through FCCBs Alternative Gifts catalog this Christmas
7. Pray for the girls, the women and the boys and men who are held captive in bonded labor throughout the world, and for their oppressors
8. Join the Not for Sale campaign e-distribution
9. Become a Big Brother or a Big Sister
10. Review, support and circulate petitions on change.org

Watch a video of Shelly’s sermon…

First Church member Barbara Grady-Ayer has also written a series of articles on the local aspects of human trafficking right here in the East Bay that appears on the Oakland Local website.

More about First Church Berkeley, United Church of Christ

A Lament for Lynching

by Phil Porter, First Church Minister of Art & Communication and member of the Diversity Ministry Team

This piece was originally published in the First Church newsletter The Carillon. It was written in the context of a study the church was doing of Dr. James Cone’s book The Cross and the Lynching Tree.

When I was in high school, I had a teacher with whom I worked quite a bit. More than once, when I apologized to her for something I had done, she would say “Don’t be sorry, just do better next time.” I understood and appreciated the sentiment—paying attention to future actions and not repeating mistakes rather than regretting the past. But it also changed my habits around apology. I think I apologized less to her and to others and I’m not that was a good thing.

In my mind, there are a couple of different ways to apologize.  In the first, I may have done something I regretted. I say “I’m sorry” to the ones who were affected by my actions. In the second, I may recognize that a bad thing has happened to someone. I may say “I’m sorry that that happened to you.” The intention is less about my personal regret or responsibility and more about expressing compassion and solidarity.

Sometimes, I find myself  in between the two. I may feel a need to apologize because I recognize that a wrong has been done, but I may not be sure about my own personal responsibility.

Over a period of forty years from about 1880 to 1940, there were over 3400 reported cases of lynching in the United States. Who knows how many more went unreported? This violence and terrorism was brutal and widespread, and went unchecked by law enforcement, government or civic and religious institutions. Its purpose was not only to punish but to “frighten to death.” It was racism most blatant.

I’m sorry that this happened in this country or anywhere. I’m sorry that the pain of this period reverberates in individuals and in the collective body even today. And I find myself in that territory where I’m not sure of my own responsibility. Those events have seemed distant both in time and location, but the more I learn, the more I open myself to this tragedy, the more I wonder what responsibility I carry. Sometimes my sense of responsibility comes from a collective rather than individual identity. I may be at fault, not as one person but as a member of a group, whether that membership is chosen or not. As a spiritual practice, I try not to shirk my collective responsibility even when an inner voice is saying, “but it wasn’t really me that did this!”

As a white person, I feel a need to make my regret explicit for lynching and all the other practices that have terrorized and demeaned black people throughout the years. Otherwise, how with those who carry that painful legacy know that I stand with them? I’m sorry all of that happened.

And because these sorts of things are still going on, I will also try to follow advice of my high school teacher to do better this time and the next.