Vigil for our Families (SEIU Sponsored)

What could possibly force a child to support their able bodied parent? Over 1,950 immigrant families in the Twin Cities have had their primary bread-winner fired in the last 18 months as a result of actions by ICE (US immigration and Customs Enforcement). Why? Because they are immigrants and our broken system gives them no way to be here legally. Workers at Chipotle who made your burritos, Janitors who cleaned your offices at night when you were home, these are the victims of our countries’ broken immigration system. Children pulled from schools, houses falling into foreclosure, communities torn apart, these are the results of our country’s broken immigration system.

Time	Sunday, March 20 · 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Location	Incarnation Catholic Church 3817 Pleasant Ave Minneapolis, MN

 For more information visit here Working Partnerships

or here at the facebook event page

Pride

Lately I’ve been thinking about the idea of pride.  It’s a word I hear often, and I have conflicting feelings about its use and meaning.  So I thought I’d take a minute to put my thoughts down about it. 

It seems to me that there are at least two different kinds of pride.  They have distinctly different sources, and vastly different effects on the world. 

The first kind of pride is the destructive kind.  At its essence, this kind of pride is really about insecurity.  It’s about defensiveness.  It is the kind of pride that makes me feel a false sense of superiority, because really, I feel inferior.  At the heart of this kind of pride is fear – fear that I am not good enough, and so I have to be defensive, and degrade others.  This kind of pride leads to outward defensiveness, spitefulness, and even hate.  This pride, I think, is the kind mentioned in the Psalms, the kind that leads to destruction.   It is this kind of pride that I fear, and try to stay away from, although often unsuccessfully.

But there is another kind of pride – a beautiful kind.  I believe it is the kind of pride that it takes for the Egyptian people stand up and fight every day for democracy and freedom.  I believe it is the kind of pride that it took for the black and people of color in South Africa to wage a decades-long fight against the evil of white-enforced apartheid.  I think it is the kind of pride that it takes for a fifteen year old transgender teenager to make it through high school, up against  bigotry, hate and fear.  I think it’s the kind of pride that it takes for Mario and his coworkers to stand up for decent treatment at their jobs.

I believe this kind of pride is about the confidence, or at least the courage to declare the inherent dignity and priceless worth of each of us.  This kind of pride is a celebration of the beauty and wonder that is each of us – even in the face of societies, of governments, of churches, and of people who tell us differently.  I believe at its center, this pride is a declaration, an acknowledgement, and a joyfulness that each of us is beautifully created, and valuable and wonderful beyond all measure.   This pride paves the way for the fight against oppression. 

This is the pride that I want.  This is the pride that I have for my community, for my neighbors, and for my world.  This is the pride I hope to act out of every day.  When it comes right down to it, this is the side of the fight I want to be on; Pride in our mutual worth and dignity, and dedication to the love and justice that recognizes that worth.  This is the pride that will continue to feed me so I can organize, and build power for justice. 

There’s a passage in the Judeo-Christian creation story that says, “And God saw that it was good.”  I imagine God with a big smile, swelling with pride in the beauty and worth of that creation. 

Hey Spirit of Truth

The Growth and Action Committee wants to know if you have any ideas for upcoming actions? 

What kinds of "tactics" show our faith in action?

Some examples in planning are prayers and songs, but what else could happen?

Give it some thought...     ask a friend...    do some research...

"What does a faith community do to attract attention, make a stand, fight injustice, show love and faith in humanity?"

Spirit of Truth has a unique opportunity to show the world what people of faith in love and justice do differently when they are up against the odds. We all know of examples of what people who believe in hate can do to get attention, but what can people who believe in love and justice do?

Please add some suggestions in the comments below, or bring them to church, or contact a member of the Growth and Action Committee

*Action Alert for CTUL*

The CTUL campaign for cleaning workers rights has elevated with ongoing daily actions to get Mario his job back.

Many of the planned actions have already happened, you can catch updates here

SoT is hoping to help out with a significant presence at the next two planned events

• Tuesday 3/15 6pm
• Thursday 3/17 10am Workers will make a big announcement about the next steps in the campaign

The Tuesday event will be performance based, so come out to see something great!

Thursday's morning event will be a chance for the CTUL workers to let the companies know they mean business. They need all the support they can get for this event, so if you can take off work, or show up please do.

RSVP at the facebook page

Some of you may be wondering what you can do to keep workers rights from being thrown under the bus. You may not be able to visit Madison, or Ohio or the dozen other places where the law is being changed to hurt working people, but you can stand up right here with the workers who clean your grocery stores!  Stand in solidarity with your community members. Stand in solidarity for those who are made invisible by unfair hiring and firing practices. Stand in solidarity with those who wish for a better world for all.

It's not fair.

Once when I was about seven years old I was upset about something, who knows what now, but I believed that I had been treated unfairly by my family. I decided to run away to teach them a lesson. I went into a cellar at the side of our house that could only be reached from outside and I waited. I cried and felt sorry for myself. I imagined that I would have my revenge when my family discovered I was gone and that it was all their fault. I cried some more and no one came or noticed that I was gone. Some time passed that felt like a long time to a child. I realized that I was bored and would have to come out of hiding. I stopped crying and waited until my eyes stopped being puffy, at this point if anyone noticed I had been crying it would be embarrassing. I came out and found nothing changed around me, no one knew I was ever missing.

I told this story to Pedro in a one-on-one conversation one Sunday. I started it with laughter and disclaimers about how insignificant my experience of “unfairness” is. Pedro listened. He didn’t roll his eyes or belittle my story as I feared I might deserve. He just said that he saw how sensitive I was and that I should be glad and proud to have these feelings because they are what make us human.

It turns out it’s not only humans that react to situations they believe to be unfair. Researchers have found that dogs and monkeys will stop doing tricks if they witness that other animals are getting better treats for the same actions. That’s how basic the concept of fairness is.

Children first learning about fairness often misuse the expression, “it’s not fair!” They learn early on that fairness is an important principle that adults take seriously. Children will say it’s not fair when they really mean that they don’t like what is going on. Unfairness might be a good argument to employ to get a reversal of a decision that goes against their preferences, so they use it liberally and hope it will work.

As we become older and wiser we learn to evaluate situations with a little distance. We see that there is a difference between what we would most like to have happen and what is fair. We become objective, or do a little better at it, at least.

So how do we, as a faith community committed to promoting justice in the world, evaluate what is just and fair? The world is complicated and there are many conflicting opinions about what is fair.

For myself I will try to hear the humanity in other’s stories, as Pedro did for me. I will ask if the same rewards are given for similar jobs, even animals know that this is fair. And I will consider if a plea for fairness is about greed or about dignity, we are no longer children and we can tell the difference.

The Story is Old but The Hope is Always New

Is a movement happening before our eyes? Are we playing our part? Participating with Spirit of Truth these last weeks with the organization CTUL as they fight for basic worker rights and praying each week for the workers in Wisconsin, and watching events unfold in the Middle East it feels like a moment pregnant with possibility and hope. Of course anyone who has ever been pregnant or loved someone who was knows that pregnant moments come with their own share of anxiety and fear. That's what this moment feels like. Quadafi has the guns, Walker has the Govorner' s office, and here locally the management of Carlson companies and Cub foods feels like it can just ignore calls to stop treating people like trash.

Its the same story. Locally, nationally and internationally, those in power will disregard the humanity and the dignity of those who make them wealthy, if they can. This story is very old. On Sunday at Spirit of Truth we read a portion of the ancient story of Moses and the Israelites fight with Pharaoh. It was a fight for freedom, for an end to slavery, for human dignity and a chance to rebuild a community with love and justice at the center.

The same tactics and the same false accusations were leveled against the enslaved Israelites as Gaddafi, Walker and Carlson Co. are making against workers today. On the day Moses demanded freedom for his people Pharaoh responded, " You want them to have a break! No! (in fact) You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks as before; let them go and gather straw for themselves. but you shall require them to make the same quantitiy of bricks as they have made previously; do not diminish it FOR THEY ARE LAZY; and that is why they cry let us go and worship our God. Let heavier work be laid on them, then they will labor and pay no attention to these lies about being overworked" Exodus 5:6-9.

Teachers are you listening? Store cleaners, street repairers, police officers, fire fighters, are you listening? The struggle that you are in is thousands of years old and the tactics are the same! You are called greedy. You are called lazy! These are the same tactics the powerful have always used to shame and dis organize the oppressed!

But remember what happens next. Pharaoh and all his stand ins are relegated to the dust heap of history! It is true that in the struggle for liberation and freedom some will pay a higher cost than others. In Libya some will die. In Wisconsin perhaps some will be laid off. We already know in Minnesota some will be fired. These costs are high and those who pay them deserve our respect and our support. Most of all we owe each other continued belief that those on the side of human dignity, those on the side of justice, those on the side of fairness are on the right side of history.

I believe that each person is the image of God. We cannot believe that and be neutral when human beings are tossed aside like trash. There is a moment happening now that calls us to take sides in an ancient struggle for the values of love and justice.

Facing Injustice

I went to Stillwater to participate in the action with workers who clean Twin Cities Cub Foods stores. It was a beautiful day and not too cold to appreciate it. Stillwater was its lovely self, the gracious old homes overlooking the river which stretches far and wide there.

We had come to work for justice. That is an easy phrase to say, and just as easy to feel good about when saying it. But it became more than words for me as we met two contracted cleaners from CTUL, Mario and Jesus, and prayed together in the parking lot. It did not have the exhilaration of a large demonstration, but we were connecting with each other in a way that cannot happen in bigger actions.

In Cub headquarters, a receptionist called someone to come listen to our speakers. Most of our time there I was unable to hear the conversation so I focused on people’s facial expressions. The Cub Foods’ representative appeared to be listening to both the Spanish and English explanations of why we had come. He also seemed very uncomfortable.

Mario presented requests for meetings regarding working conditions. It would be daunting for me to try and present something important to someone who does not speak my language, which is what Mario had to do. But what I saw was his calm persistence. I could hear and see Brandon, who courteously, and also persistently, presented the simple fact that Cub Foods employees and contracted cleaners are all human beings. It was uplifting to hear those words in this setting. The idea that we are all children of God is not something that gets tossed around a lot in a non-religious setting.

But it was Jesus whose face made the words “work for justice” become very real to me. He is a young man whose job was taken from him by the acts of people with more power than he holds. On his face I read worry, distress, and a little fear. I don’t mean to speak for him, I don’t know how he was feeling, but that is what my heart read. From that moment, I became motivated by the very realness of Jesus’ life struggles and I felt rather than thought about the injustice and pain.

One of the reasons injustices happen is that there are faceless components to them. Who actually decided to cut wages and staff while increasing workloads for the cleaners? Those people remain faceless. When you go shopping for groceries and the floors are clean, the shelves are stocked neatly, etc., you don’t even think about who cleans, who stocks, who orders food, who delivers it, who grew it. They are all faceless.

But when you see faces, it all changes.




*For more information about this event please click on the picture below