Application deadline: Friday, May 11, 2012

Education requirements: 4-year college or equivalent experience preferred

Employment: 34 hours per week (hours negotiable, not less than 32 hours per week)

Salary:  $32,000

Benefits: Employer pays 80% of health insurance premium, 100% dental insurance premium. One month paid vacation.

Background

Community Church of Boston Statement of Purpose
The Community Church of Boston is a free community united for the study and practice of universal religion, seeking to apply ethical ideals to individual life and the democratic and cooperative principle to all forms of social and economic life.

Theology
We affirm individuals and communities in their free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We shape our ethics and morality based on lived experience, history, as well as our commitment to justice and love.

History
Since our founding in 1920, the Community Church of Boston has been an active peace and justice congregation, a “free pulpit in action”, a non-sectarian, human-centered congregation with a rich and dynamic community life and a renowned history.

Sundays
From September through June, we hold our 11:00am Speakers Forum, when we hear from inspiring and thought-provoking speakers on social justice topics. We listen, reflect on what we hear, build community together and oftentimes take action. Music adds a wonderful dimension to the service, and we dialogue with our speaker before gathering for lunch.

Membership
Our community is small, vibrant, and growing. With 60+ members, we also have hundreds of friends who come through our doors every year to participate on Sundays and in many other ways. In deciding to become a member of the Community Church of Boston, individuals agree with our Statement of Purpose which declares: “We the undersigned, accepting the stated purpose of the Church, do join ourselves together, that we may help one another, may multiply the power of each through mutual friendship and may thereby promote most effectively the cause of truth righteousness and love in the world.”  Church members become involved in our congregation’s life in many ways as ze/she/he is able.

Job Responsibilities

In general, the Congregational Director shall:

§         Provide non-sectarian leadership around the purpose of the Community Church of Boston

§         Provide a level of pastoral care to our community that is appropriate to their training and experience

§         Serve as contact person and deal with many building related and tenant-organization matters

§         Provide leadership in forming and building relationships with our membership

§         Build connections with other individuals and institutions (religious and non-religious) around issues of social justice and community building

§         Aid us in using our building and facilities to deepen social justice activism in and around Boston

§         Help us grow our purpose and membership as a means to strengthen our social justice roots and our future together.

Specifically, the tasks of the Congregational Director entail:

§         Coordinating and leading Sunday programs

§         Supporting membership growth activities, including our prisoner membership

§         Attending monthly board meetings, with prepared reports

§         Meeting with various church committees, including Membership, Program, and Ministry

§         Troubleshooting issues that affect our tenant organizations and our 5-floor building on Copley Street, including equipment, insurance, overall administration

§         Supervising other church staff

Preferred Qualifications & Characteristics

§         A deep commitment and experience in social justice and anti-oppression work

§         Good people skills

§         Knowledge of local organizations committed to social justice

§         Thoughtful analyses of racism, classism, heteropatriarchy (sexism, homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism), capitalism, imperialism

§         Experience facilitating meetings and dialogues

§         Reliable, good time management skills and ability to delegate tasks

§         Basic computer skills

§         People of color and people of all genders encouraged to apply

§         We encourage applicants with ministerial as well as non-ministerial experience to apply

How To Apply

Send cover letter and resume by email (preferably as PDFs) or postal service to:

Community Church of Boston, 565 Boylston St, Boston, MA 02116 or to

commchurchapply@yahoo.com

Selected applicants will be invited for an interview in May 2012.  Finalists will be invited to make a Sunday presentation in front of the congregation in May or early June for a mid-summer start date.

We all get moments of this hopelessness and struggling through it can be exhausting. The sentence of Life Without Possibility of Parole is not simply a moment of that hopelessness, it transforms life into hopelessness. The sentence itself is a declaration that the individual convicted of something so heinous can never experience any kind of transformation, no communal redemption, but rather is a manifestation of evil that must be confined away behind bars, behind concrete, behind barbed wire for the rest of that person’s life. Life Without Possibility of Hope. Life Without Possibility of actually living life.

Many understand the Death Penalty as an immoral, unjust, and even economically unsound sentence to hand down to an individual. However, the immorality does not simply stop at the state-sanctioned murder of an individual. The sentence of Life Without Possibility of Parole is indeed just another form of death. “The Other Death Penalty Project”, an organizing effort comprised entirely of individuals currently serving Life Without possibility of Parole across the country, asserts that, not only is this a sentence of death, it is able to exist as such without any kind of “legal or administrative safeguards” to protect those who have been sentenced, a practice that is automatic for those sentenced to die by needle, electric chair, or gas as opposed to death by old age and disease in a concrete box.ⁱ

Kenneth Hartman, who wrote the founding document of The Other Death Penalty Project, relates to that hopelessness we felt earlier. He reflected on the words of, Anatoly Shcharansky, himself a former prisoner,”that as hard as it is for man to come to terms with meaninglessness and infinity, it is impossible to adjust to infinite meaninglessness.” He goes on to write, “I can think of no better definition for the intent of the life without parole sentence. It is an exile from meaning and purpose, from hope. And as the years roll by, inevitably, bitterness begins to overtake even the strongest of men, fueled by this banishing from all that is most human. I fight the bitterness with all my might, all my faith and love, but without hope even these mighty forces seem inadequate to the task.”ⁱⁱ When we say that Life in Prison Without Parole is unjust, is the taking of a life, we say so not because of some theoretical reflection but because of the lived experience of people who are living with the eternal consequences of their lives and the injustice system.

I want to take just a moment to remind us that the authentic reality of guilt is hardly relevant to our current injustice system. Our criminal injustice system is about those with access to financial resources, those with access to white privilege, those with access to people in power get to, for the most part, go free while those who are most marginalized are railroaded through the system. As I continue the rest of my talk I am going to frame it around those who actually have caused great harm by unjustly taking another person’s life. Our criminal injustice system is rooted in the practices of white supremacy and economic colonialism and that should be reason enough for us to get rid of Life in Prison Without Parole, but unfortunately that argument is not working for most of us. So I want to continue talking about this other death sentence, but do so while thinking of those who have actually caused harm – including those who never get caught.

The Norfolk Prison Lifers Group wrote an incredible report last year, “Life Without Parole: A Reconsideration.” While I do not agree with the assertion in their paper that it is appropriate to lock people up for even 25 years, I do think their reflections are incredibly important when reflecting on the practice of sentencing people to die behind prison walls. They write, “When a person is sentenced to LWOP, the decision has been made that the person is no longer fit to remain in society and that exclusion must continue no matter how much the person may change. LWOP ignores the obvious fact that over time some prisoners no longer pose a threat to harm others. They can be released on parole without endangering public safety and can constructively contribute to the welfare of the entire community. Merely warehousing human beings until they die is not a solution to criminal justice issues: not socially, not morally, not criminologically and certainly not fiscally.”ⁱⁱⁱ

In Massachusetts the sentence of Life Without Parole is reserved for those cases in which the individual has been convicted of First Degree Murder. It is important to note, as was done so in the paper put out by the Norfolk Lifers Group, that the number of individuals serving Life in Prison Without Parole has grown 5 times between 1977 and 2009, yet the rate of murder has actually gone down.^iv In 1977 there were 170 people serving Life Without Parole and in 2009 there were 938 people serving in Massachusetts prisons.^v This growth is part of the ongoing Mass Incarceration practice roaring through the United States that is tearing apart communities of color and low-income communities.

Many have claimed that Life Without Parole is a necessity for getting rid of the Death Penalty in states across the country. The Massachusetts Coalition Against the Death Penalty president has suggested that we could make it so that Massachusetts was more of a model than feeling, “weird.” However, given that Massachusetts ranks fourth in the country for percentage of individuals under some form of state control, prison, probation or parole, I am not so sure this model is something we want to lift up and highlight for the rest of the country. One of the points I think most importantly articulated in the report by the Lifers group asserts that, “Twenty years of experience with life-without-parole statutes shows that although they have only a small effect on reducing executions, they have doubled and tripled the length of sentences for offenders who never would have been sentenced to death or even been eligible for the death penalty.”^vi They go on further to quote Marie Gottschalk writing that, “In promoting LWOP, [death penalty] abolitionists risk legitimizing a sanction that, like the death penalty, is sharply divergent with human rights and sentencing norms in other Western countries. The emphasis on LWOP as an alternative to the death penalty appears to be legitimating the greater use of this sanction for non-capital cases.”^vii For us, we must recognize that the existence of this sentence, of saying that an individual may never return to society, is simply part of the ongoing warehousing of individuals, forcing bodies the government does not like into little concrete cages.

We need to be prepared to respond to the current societal expectations and norms around incarceration, specifically when thinking about Life Without Parole. Those who get sentenced to this are, most usually, those who have harmed people in a way that we find it next to impossible to figure out what transformative or restorative justice could look like. However, we must examine the stories, the cultural myths, we have been told over and over again about our society.

Palak Shah, an abolitionist organizer and editor of Defending Justice, identifies four particularly damaging myths used widely within the United States to contribute to the growth of the prison industrial complex. The idea that, “we are all rugged individualists” is the first myth Shah identifies. This is the concept that we can all “make it” or “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” if we simply try hard enough. “Rugged individualism,” she says, “asserts that the strong rise and the weak fall. This idea values individual liberty over any collective or community obligation…This is sometimes called a masculinist world view, placing a higher value on common ideas about men and maleness than on women; it contributes to a climate where sexism is acceptable.”^viii This “rugged individualism” depends upon a myth that those who are suffering get what they deserve and that those who are succeeding are inherently better. This ideology parallels the Calvinist theology of determinism and predestination.

The second myth Shah highlights is that all people who are in prison must have done something wrong. “This myth is based on the idea that human actions are governed primarily by personal responsibility… People who act responsibly stay out of trouble… Prisoners are people who acted irresponsibly and must suffer the consequences.”^ix This myth ignores the social construction of poverty, white supremacy, homelessness, and other structural violence that leads to survival “crime.” This myth refuses to acknowledge what actually goes on behind prison walls. This myth refuses to look at the healthcare access prisoners receive. This is the myth that allows sexual violence in prison to be seen as a joke and simply part of the punishment for acting “irresponsibly.” Because of how I approach the anti-prison movement, I am curious about what this says theologically and the theological norm established with this myth is that humanity is, “born sinful and must exercise self discipline to reach heaven. If they refuse to behave properly, then punishment is not only appropriate, it is for their own good, to help them be redeemed in the eyes of God.”^x The prison industrial complex then becomes its own manifestation of God, playing the role of ultimate punisher and disciplinarian for human transgression.

The third myth relates to the judicial system itself. Shah suggests, “Americans believe, and want to believe, that the U.S. justice system treats everyone fairly despite clear evidence that this is not the case.”^xi Personally, I think what would seem more accurate is that those who have not been most impacted by the judicial system believe and want to believe in the fairness of the system. It is simply another misleading white, ruling class story that pervades our dominant culture. There is an assumption that a “jury of your peers” will look at evidence with an unbiased eye. There is an assumption that the racist systems every person internalizes will not play out when making a judgement about a situation. Yet how many times are the words of a police officer taken with more validity than the words of a sex-worker? How many times have prosecutors relied on the racism of a jury to get a conviction? In February of 2010 Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was convicted of attempted murder on U.S. interrogators in 2008 even though there was no material evidence supporting the accounts of the prosecution. The language of terrorism and “crazy Arab woman” were tossed around the court room, playing on the fear of the jury.

The final myth Shah highlights is that the American people are taught to believe that the criminal justice system keeps communities safe. This understanding is, “rooted in the false assumption that prisons work to create safety and reduce ‘crime…’ Central to the notion that the system is working is the belief that the U.S. criminal justice system protects the innocent and provides for their security.”^xii Would the families and communities of Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Tarika Wilson, Duanna Johnson, and so many others who have lost their loved ones to murder by police agree that the criminal justice system keeps their communities safe? When the police arrest the survivor in a domestic violence situation because the couple is same-gender or the survivor is defending him/herself are they being protected by the criminal justice system? Those who have been taught that the police are around to protect them must examine how that message was taught and why they feel safe with the presence of the police.

Dr. Suzanne Joseph, whose work was explored in detail a few years ago here by Vivianne Saleh-Hanna when she spoke about the history of incarceration, has discussed the cognitive dissonance involved in the establishment of feelings of safety by distinguishing the cultural acceptance of the, “inevitability of Black death and the superiority of white life”^xiii Dr. Joseph looks specifically at the colonization of Palestine and the condemnation of Palestinian resistance in contrast to the legitimation of Israeli military occupation and murder of Palestinian lives. Joseph’s analysis of Zionism and the colonization of Palestine is useful when deconstructing the cultural norms of the prison industrial complex as Palestine has often been called “the largest open air prison on earth.” This analysis can be applied to the ways the media considers the lives of the Black, Latino, and Arab individuals killed by the police, providing protection for white people or white owned property. This analysis can also be applied to the torture and violence used against detainees in Guantanamo Bay or other U.S. military prisons around the world in the name of protecting the United States citizens, or more aptly, the ruling class and white power structures. We must look at how Dr. Joseph’s analysis is operating in the development of the prison industrial complex and particularly in the sentencing of people to Life Without Parole. How many white cops who shoot Black men are sitting in Norfolk for taking the lives of Black people? The answer is simple, none. Let us also recognize the racial disparities inherent in the sentencing of people to life without parole. According to Human Rights Watch, “On average across the country, Black youth are serving life without parole at a per capita rate that is 10 times that of white youth.”^xiv These racial disparities are worse in some states, “in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and California, Black youth are between 18 and 48 times more likely to be serving sentences of life without parole than white youth.”^xv

While an immediate elimination of Life Without Parole, and more largely the abolition of the prison industrial complex may not feel realistic, a good practice is to explore strategies that will lead to the end goal as well as examine alternatives to relying on the penal system, police, or punishment ideology. James Samuel Logan wrote Good Punishment as a Christian theological exploration of the prison industrial complex and to offer reflections on the possibility of living differently. Logan is an abolitionist and specifically sympathetic to Angela Davis’ suggestions of abolitionism. He relates to Davis as she, “insists that society not search for prison like substitutes for the prison, ‘such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic bracelets.’ Rather, she invites us to imagine a constellational continuum of alternatives to imprisonment: e.g., the ‘demilitarization of education on all levels… a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than on retribution and vengeance.”^xvi Logan suggests that humanity has the capacity of creating these new systems even as it takes a radical change in how the culture is structured at the current time.

To get beyond the humiliation and violence of the prison industrial complex Logan offers, “an ‘ontology of love,’ which essentially drives humanity toward ‘the reunion of the separated.’”^xvii This reunion involves all of the people of society. When an individual causes harm to another there is a need of return to the grace of humanity for all involved. Society as a whole has a particular role in this process along with the individuals directly involved in a particular situation. Society is, “in need of forgiveness of having created and permitted crime-generative communities to exist.”^xviii This permission manifests itself as a refusal to provide universal healthcare, criminalizing mental illness, evicting people from their homes, sending people off to war, and so many other violent socializing processes. The particular individuals involved also have roles to play in the process of justice. Relating to Howard Zehr’s theories of restorative justice Logan defines restorative justice as system that is, “community-based and deals with offenders through a victim-oriented process of restoration in the form of restitution… Restitution recognizes the basic need of victims for vindication without making the pain and humiliation of punishment the final word.”^xix

Many people question how forgiveness or restitution can happen after a violent act or harm has been caused, a doubt that is well-founded in a culture that puts so much value on vengeance and punishment. However, very importantly restorative justice, “does not aim to encourage or coerce victims of crime to forgive or reconcile with offenders, though the process ‘does provide a context where either or both might happen.’”^xx Justice can occur without a particular survivor choosing to forgive the person/people who caused harm in the first place. Restitution can be configured in whatever way is needed. Forgiveness can be left to the Divine, allowing the survivor of harm to move on. However, forgiveness can be a saving experience for the survivor(s). This forgiveness is not a “forgive and forget” fiction created for the illusion of justice. In order to establish the purpose and benefit of forgiveness in any given situation an understanding of forgiveness as part of establishing “healing memories” can be helpful. Logan relies heavily on the ethics of Stanley Hauerwas in his writing, both supporting and critiquing him. For Haurwas, “Christian forgiveness is not that our sins no longer matter but that our sins are now made part of the economy of salvation for the constitution of a new community otherwise impossible.’ It is crucial for Hauerwas that the gift of our forgiveness, of transformed but not forgotten memories of offense, be received in the context of gathered community.”^xxi Forgiveness for a survivor may look like a recognition of the harm caused, a remembering of the pain, and a willingness to understand that the person who caused the harm is human, even if that humanness is broken.

This forgiveness absolutely doe not need to be relegated to Christianity or the religious realm. Those of us who are humanists and those in the secular world have plenty of models to turn to that give us the tools we need to say no to the warehousing of people for the rest of their lives. There are examples of communities and organizations turning away from the prison industrial complex and addressing harm in ways that feel transformative for them. “Over the past several years Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA) in Seattle has actively supported people and networks in developing community accountability strategies. In one situation, CARA supported a group of young women organizers who had been sexually assaulted by a male co-organizer. Because of the women’s demands, the group removed him from his position and he entered counseling with support from friends. The group also began sponsoring trainings on sexual violence throughout its national chapters.”^xxii In this example the survivors were able to come together and get the support that they needed from an outside organization. They also were able to claim their space within their own community by making demands that the abuser be held accountable. The abuser then agreed to take his own necessary steps to heal his brokenness by entering into counseling. The organization as a whole also took its responsibility by agreeing to trainings that would hopefully lead to an organizational culture that challenges all forms of violence. These steps help create a safer environment and let go of the continual reliance on the prison industrial complex to solve their problems.

Another example, right here in Boston, is the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. The work they do to bring families who have lost a loved one to homicide as well as families who have lost a loved one to the prison system for taking a life, is work that is honored all around the country. While they may not be directly working to put an end to the incarceration system, They are modeling a practice that shows us that we can engage with each other without relying on the violence of the current criminal injustice system to do the work for us.

Life Without Parole is a violent alternative to the death penalty. We have a responsibility to work with those organizing to put an end to this practice. While we are working to rid ourselves of the practice of incarcerating people at all we would do well to partner with the Norfolk Lifers Group who are fighting for what I would call abolitionist reforms, practices that are helping us get closer to the elimination of the current system. They are fighting to get all people access to parole and that is an essential change that we can fight for. However we cannot fight for that with blinders on. Our parole system is broken. If someone as incredible and reconciled to the reality of the harm he caused as Arnie King, cannot get his sentence commuted, where can our hope in the parole board be? At all times our organizing work must be multi-faceted, because the injustice system is multi-faceted. We need to be cautious when claiming victories. Our work is cut out for us, but we have people to work with. The Norfolk Lifers Group, the Other Death Penalty Project, and others around the country are all struggling to create the world that we dream of. As we expand our prison ministry here at the Community Church of Boston and as we strengthen our organizing and advocacy work here, we will be able to lift up the voices of currently incarcerated people along with their loved ones. We do have the power to do this, the next step is to build our will to do it. I believe we can.

ENDNOTES:

I did, however, find the time to read, reflect, and write in preparation for today. Today I want to talk about Black history and my great excitement in celebrating it. Black History Month began as Black History Week in 1926, started by Carter G. Woodson, historian, author, and founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Woodson’s intention was that by highlighting a week of Black history the U.S. culture would begin to shift and include Black history at all times of the year. He chose the second week in February as it marked the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. The Association for the Study of African American Life and History had expanded Black History Week to a full month and in 1976 President Ford was the fist President to issue an observance of Black History Month.

There are important critiques of Black History Month that I do not want to ignore. There are those people who think that it simply pigeonholes Black history into the shortest, coldest month of the year. Others suggest that it becomes a capitalist profiteering time for white businesses off the oppression of Black people. I have also heard people critique the way white teachers and white institutions choose Black histories to tell during this month, the story telling of Black leaders that do not make white people uncomfortable or the white washing of Black narratives. I want to acknowledge the critiques without being dismissive. While I choose to honor Black History Month I want to do so with attention to these dissenting voices.

Why do I honor Black History Month? I am certainly not trying to relegate my care and attention to Black people’s influence on the world to only one month. I honor Black History Month because I believe an important step in the path towards liberation is the recognition of particular experiences of oppression and resistance. One of the people who greatly inspires me around this, and who I have mentioned many times before, is Kate Cannon. Cannon was the first African American woman to earn the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York. She is a womanist ethicist and theologian. She suggests that “in order that we may become responsible decision-makers who envision structural and systemic alternatives that embrace the well being of us all,” we need to understand, among other things, larger emancipatory historiographies, liberating histories. In order to best understand these histories we must examine stories of oppression and resistance. As I strive to have an authentic liberation ethic I need to learn and understand Black history, and I encourage everyone else to join me in doing so.

I want to explore some histories, some untold or under-told stories. Rather than explore the stories in chronological order I have chosen to share them today by theme. Firstly lets hear some poetry and prose that can shape our lives -

Audre Lorde compiled a collection of poems in The Black Unicorn. The collection was originally published in 1978. Andrea Rich describes Lorde as, “refusing to be circumscribed by any simple identity, [she] writes as a Black woman, a mother, a daughter, a Lesbian, a feminist, a visionary; poems of elemental wildness and healing, nightmare and lucidity.” She writes -

A song for many movements

Nobody wants to dies on the way

caught between ghosts of whiteness

and the real water

none of us wanted to leave

our bones

on the way to salvation

three planets to the left

a century of light years ago

our spices are separate and particular

but our skins sing in complimentary keys

at a quarter to eight mean time

we were telling the same stories

over and over and over.

Broken down gods survive

in the crevasses and mudpots

of every beleaguered city

where it is obvious

there are too many bodies

to cart to the ovens

or gallows

and our uses have become

more important than our silence

after the fall

too many empty cases

of blood to bury or burn

there will be no body left

to listen

and our labor

has become more important

than our silence.

Our labor has become

more important

than our silence.

The voice and vision of Audre Lorde is part of Black history and our hearts and minds must be open to the gifts that lie in her words. History is not something that is dead and gone, rather it lives on in the words and deeds of every day life. Just as a tree holds its rings of history making its trunk as strong and as fragile as it is so too do our histories live within us, collectively and individually. We are living and breathing collections of history.

Richard Wright’s Black Boy was published in 1945. This incredibly groundbreaking work is a semi-fictionalized autobiography of Richard Wright. He explores his life and his lessons that he experienced while growing up Black during Jim Crow. While his writing did not gain popular love immediately he later greatly influenced Black consciousness during the 1960s. I chose a particularly powerful excerpt from the book that has been lifted up as a beginning of the young Richard’s awareness building.

“My mother’s suffering grew into a symbol in my mind, gathering to itself all the poverty, the ignorance, the helplessness; the painful, baffling, hunger-ridden days and hours; the restless moving, the futile seeking, the uncertainty, the fear, the dread; the meaningless pain and the endless suffering. Her life set the emotional tone of my life, colored the men and women I was to meet in the future, conditioned my relation to events that had not yet happened, determined my attitude to situations and circumstances I had yet to face. A somberness of spirit that I was never to lose settled over me during the slow years of my mother’s unrelieved suffering, a somberness that was to make me stand apart and look upon excessive joy with suspicion, that was to make me keep forever on the move, as though to escape a nameless fate seeking to overtake me.
At the age of twelve, before I had one year of formal schooling, I had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase, a predilection for what was real that no argument could ever gainsay, a sense of the world that was mine and mine alone, a notion as to what life meant that no education could ever alter, a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering.
At the age of twelve I had an attitude toward life that was to endure, that was to make me seek those areas of living that would keep it alive, that was to make me skeptical of everything while seeking everything, tolerant of all and yet critical. The spirit I had caught gave me insight into the sufferings of others, made me gravitate toward those whose feelings were like my own, made me sit for hours while others told me of their lives, made me strangely tender and cruel, violent and peaceful.
It made me want to drive coldly to the heart of every question and it open to the core of suffering I knew I would find there. It made me love burrowing into psychology, into realistic and naturalistic fiction and art, into those whirlpools of politics that had the power to claim the whole of men’s souls. It directed my loyalties to the side of men in rebellion; it made me love talk that sought answers to questions that could help nobody, that could only keep alive in me that enthralling sense of wonder and awe in the face of the drama of human feeling which is hidden by the external drama of life.”

Fiction cannot be left behind or discarded, fiction shapes the world and tells stories often too challenging to tell in other ways. There are visionary fictions that show another world is possible. Fiction is often the only avenue to communicate when fact is just too complicated to to open up.

Assata Shakur, a revolutionary former political prisoner currently in exile in Cuba, is also an incredible poet. We have read her poetry on Sunday mornings many times. Her image was hung in our space downstairs when our services were held there. She was an essential part of the Black Liberation Army and fought strong for the freedom of Black people, she continues to do so today in Cuba. She writes,

What is Left?

After the bars and the gates and the degradation

What is left?

I mean, after the chains that get entangled in the grey of one’s matter

After the bars that get stuck in the hearts of men and women

What is left?

After the tears and disappointments

After the lonely isolation

After the cut wrist and the heavy noose

What is left?

I mean, like, after the commisary kisses

and the get-your-shit-off-blues

After the hustler has been hustled

What is left?

After the sad futile maneuvers

After the shrill and barren laughter

After the contraband emotions

What is left?

After the murder burgers and the goon squads and the teargas

What is left?

I mean like, after you know that God can’t be trusted

After you know that the shrink is a pusher

that the word is a whip, and the badge is a bullet

What is left?

After you know that the dead are still walking

After you realize that silence is talking

That outside and inside are just an illusion

What is left?

I mean like, where is the sun?

Where are her arms and where are her kisses?

There are lip prints on my pillow

I am searching

What is left?

I mean like, nothing is standstill and nothing is abstract

The wing of a butterfly can’t take flight

The foot on my back is part of a body

The song that I sing is part of an echo

What is left?

I mean like, love is specific

Is my mind a machine gun?

Is my heart a hacksaw?

Can I make freedom real?

Yeah, what is left?

I am at the top and bottom of a lower-archy

I am in love with freedom and children

Love is my sword and truth is my compass

What is left?

Black theology has radically shaped the world of religious thought and spiritual understanding. Religion’s influence on race, racism, and racial identity is deeply complex and filled with great tragedy as well as illuminating beauty. Christianity as an imperialist, empire building religion has much work to do in reconciliation with Black people and Black nations. Acknowledging that, there are also those Black leaders within Christianity who have given incredible gifts to Christian theology which has trickled over into theologies of all kinds. There are Black Muslims who have created a Black theology that feeds the needs of a community impacted by deeply rooted systemic violence as well as tragic interpersonal violence. The Nation of Islam has also been a gift to many people and its leadership has, at times, served its members spiritual and political needs graciously. There is plenty of critique to offer the Nation of Islam as well, though their history is much shorter than that of Christianity. There are endless religious traditions and spiritual practices offered by Black communities around the world that need to be honored and lifted up. Today I will only be able to share a few, and they are those that I have had the privilege of being exposed to. One of the gifts I think Black History Month has to offer is a reminder to increase our individual and shared knowledge — a challenge to more authentically engage with the great wealth of knowledge that exists in the world.

James Cone is a Black liberation theologian. One of his most famous books is God of the Oppressed. In this text Done offers a systematic theology that roots itself in the lived experience of Black people. He offers both a universal and community specific theology, suggesting tools for all people to understand the ways social and historical context shapes the ways we all shape an understanding of God. I want to share a piece from his opening chapter on “Speaking Truth” -

“Jesus Christ is the subject of Black Theology because he is the content of the hopes and dreams of black people. He was chosen by our grandparents, who saw in his liberating presence that he had chosen them and thus became the foundation of their struggle for freedom. He was their Truth, enabling them to know that white definitions of black humanity were lies. When their way became twisted and senseless, they told Jesus about it. He lifted their burdens and eased their pain, thereby bestowing upon them a vision of freedom that transcended historical limitations. That is why they sang; ‘Sometimes I hangs my head an’ cries. But Jesus goin’ to wipe my weepin’ eyes…” He continues, “…There is no truth in Jesus Christ independent of the oppressed of the land – their history and culture. And in America, the oppressed are people of color – black, yellow, red, and brown. Indeed it can be said that to know Jesus is to know him as revealed in the struggle of the oppressed for freedom.”

We do not have to hold a Christian theology to recognize the power and beauty in Cone’s writings. Just as I do not need to be Black to be shaped by the gifts, ideas, and movements of Black people, I do not need to be Christian to have a theology shaped by the beauty offered by many parts of it. Jesus is the symbol of salvation, the same Greek and Hebrew word as liberation, and for one to know liberation one can only know liberation as revealed in the struggle of the oppressed for freedom. While I would not limit my understanding of the oppressed in the United States to people of color, I would certainly recognize the struggle against white supremacy as an essential part of collective liberation.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, the 2006 recipient of the Sacco and Vanzetti Social Justice Award, is an incredibly prolific writer. He has been locked down for decades and sits on Death Row, still awaiting a decision as to whether or not the state of Pennsylvania will execute him. Mumia has given a name and voice to political prisoners within the United States. While many people in the country do not know the names of the hundreds of political prisoners our country holds, Mumia’s name is one that gets some attention. The fight for his freedom is ongoing and will not stop until he is in the arms of his loved ones once again. In 1996 Mumia published Death Blossoms and in it reflects on life from the inside, offering practices and hopes for those of us living life outside the walls as well. The following is an excerpt from his reflections on the Divine -

“There are as many religions as there are cultures, and equally many names for the divine presence that is the heart of each. The energizing influence of belief keeps them apart, for to each adherent they contain truth that, from his or her perspective, is the only truth. Al the same, it seems they flow in one direction, like many streams seeking release into one mighty river. My youthful search for meaning revealed that no matter how differently the Infinite was clothed in the garb of a certain religion, it was there. In each, I found a new perception of the greatest good, that is, a belief in God or some other personification of the divine principle. I found, as George Bernard Shaw puts it, that there is ‘only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it…’ In the essence of each religion, then, we see a projection of the greatest good. For a threatened, nomadic desert tribe, what greater good than the worship of a mighty and powerful ancestor, a prominent warrior – YHWH – who defended the clans? For the maligned followers of a Nazarethan carpenter, one crucified by the mightiest Empire of the age, why not the greater good of his victory over the tomb? For contentious Arab clans who saw each other through the lens of enmity and conflict, why not the clarity and simplicity of One God to reign over the throngs who crowd the K’abba – One God to bring unity to a people, a region, a sphere of influence? Many of our ideas about God and religions simply mirror the traditions we have inherited from our forebears. They are imbided with mother’s milk, openly, uncritically, freely – illogical human expressions, exercises in irrationality. Others are perceptions gained only by leaping into the dark arms of faith. God comes, in various faces, and numerous personalities, depending on our myriad perceptions, needs, and histories. Yet if there are any miracles left, it is that God is one.”

Black History Month is about the sharing of ancient and modern wisdom. There are stories to be told and ideas to be witnessed to. As we shiver in the cold February month I wonder if we can find warmth in the words of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His wisdom comes through barbed wire, onto the pages of a book, and then into the minds of many. His theological gifts need to be honored, obviously not only in February, but it is an exciting time to take some intentional time to do so.

Delores Williams is a womanist theologian. She wrote, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenges of Womanist God-Talk shortly after James Cone released his thoughts on Black liberation theology. In her reflections she highlights some of the ways Cone’s theology perpetuates patriarchy and a male supremacist vision of God. She looks through the lenses of Black slave women, and Black women throughout U.S. history to find a theology that can speak both to the particular experience of Black women as well as offer a universal theology that all people could rejoice in. She uses the Genesis story of Hagar to reflect on the lives of Black women. I remember the first time I read her book I had hardly remembered the existence of Hagar. The stories told of Abraham and Sarah often leave out the part where Abraham gets his slave, Hagar, pregnant and then turns her away after his wife miraculously gets pregnant with his “true” heir, Isaac. Williams offers a summarized reflection on Hagar and the role of the wilderness that I want to share.

“No other biblical image could have been more appropriate than Hagar in the wilderness for representing the African-American past and present. In the two accounts of her story in Genesis, Hagar goes into the wilderness. In the first account (Genesis 16:1-9), Hagar is still a slave. In her pain and misery she meets her God for the first time. Her experience with this God could be regarded as positive by African Americans because God promises survival, freedom and nationhood for Hagar’s progeny. The African-American community has, all of its life, struggled for survival, freedom, and nationhood.

“In the second Genesis account (Genesis 21:1-9) Hagar is again in the wilderness. She and her child are no longer slaves, but their freedom has brought them into dire economic straits – just as freedom brought severe economic consequences to newly freed slaves. Like African-American people, Hagar and her child are alone without resources for survival. Hagar must try to make a living in the wide, wide world for herself and her child. This was also the task of many African-American women and the entire community of black freedpeople when emancipation came”

I would encourage everyone to revisit, or visit for the first time, the Genesis story of Abraham and Sarah. What are the lessons available in that text? What can Delores Williams offer to find theological value in the suffering and liberation Hagar and Ishmael go through? What wilderness journeys have you, and your people, whoever they may be, gone through? What aspects of the wilderness has been spiritually fulfilling, the place where you can name the Divine or find comfort from suffering? What aspects of the wilderness cause fear and doubt, the times you enter into the unknown, not unlike the wilderness Egypt is entering into now – an uncharted territory, a moment of freedom, liberation, and questioning of what is next. All the possible answers to these questions can be shaped by the beauty and power of Black history, just as Black history can add more unasked questions.

The final theme I want to explore is radical political thought. I know that there are many people in this congregation who were radicalized in the 1960′s, 1970s and before. There are also those radicalized later than that who read the ideas come out of the Black Power movement. There are so many incredible voices to lift up – Fred Hampton, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, James Baldwin, Eldridge Cleaver, bell hooks, Bruce Siedel, Angela Davis, George Jackson, and the list goes on. The ideas, actions, and organizing of these revolutionary Black people paved the way for many of us to know what justice could look like. Karl Jones has told me a number of times that the second time he came to the church, he attended once prior because a charming young woman brought him, it was to hear from a member of the Black Panther Party. Black History Month is an opportunity to reinvigorate ourselves and remember who inspires us, whether we are Black or not.

I want to start by sharing a piece from Malcolm X. The excerpt I am sharing comes from his speech that he titled, “The Ballot or the Bullet.” The speech was part of a series of speeches he began to give after he separated from the Nation of Islam and began forming a new Black nationalist movement. In the following he reflects on Black identity and American citizenship. While written nearly fifty years ago, there is much truth for today.

“I am one who doesn’t believe in deluding myself. I’m not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn’t make you a diner, unless you eat some of what’s on that plate. Being here in America doesn’t make you an American. Being born here in America doesn’t make you an American. Why, if birth made you American, you wouldn’t need any legislation, you wouldn’t need any amendments to the Constitution, you wouldn’t be faced with civil-rights filibustering in Washington, D.C., right now. They don’t have to pass civil-rights legislation to make a Polack an American.

“No, I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag saluter, or a flag waver – no, not I. I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. And Isee America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.”

If we are our living histories today, in what ways does Malcolm’s words and analysis live within us today? I think of Black people targeted by the prison industrial complex, the role of the military and its targeted drafting of young Black men and women. I think about today’s immigration debate and the role of citizenship in denying rights and humanity to other people. I think about the obsession with Barak Obama’s birth certificate. I think about the way capitalism pits working class white folks against working class people of color. I think about how these working class white folks end up identifying more with wealthy white people rather than build alliances across race to build a stronger movement to drop wrenches in the American system of oppression.

The last story I want to tell this morning comes from Elaine Brown’s autobiography, A Taste of Power. Elaine Brown was an essential member of the Black Panther Party. She was the chairman of the Party towards the end of its existence on a national level. Over and over again Brown has been left out of the story of the Black Panther Party or simply written about as the divisive woman who slept her way to the top and divided the Party. Rather, Elaine Brown was a revolutionary organizer in Oakland who had one of the most successful runs for city leadership in Oakland as a Black woman. She helped coordinate and bring about the successful breakfast programs. She travelled internationally, bringing the ideas of revolution from around the world back into her community. Elaine Brown’s voice is a blessing to Black history.

“I had come to know that York Street was as American for Black people as baseball at Connie Mack Stadium was for whites. I knew that black mothers had tried, like my own, to gloss over the pain with piano lessons and stolen new dresses, the way they smoothed Vaseline onto patent-leather Easter shoes. I knew that millions of blacks had been forced to find hope in playing numbers and relief in Scotch or heroin. I knew that millions had found comfort in the strength of the Joe Louises and Jackie Robinsons and Marian Andersons and Josephine Bakers who had clawed their way out of our degradation. I knew that millions had found salvation in the name of Jesus.

“I had become mad. Huey had surely become mad. Perhaps that was really our bond. Perhaps it was the bond of all of us, really, our rage.”

“Huey had seized a moment in the historical chain to make another bid for our humanity. From the first Africans who had leaped from slave ships in suicidal rejection of slavery, we had struggled for freedom. A thousand slaves had slit the throats and poisoned the food of their masters, living with the singular desire to live free or find freedom in hell. A thousand blacks had run for freedom, dudging bullets and ‘n— dogs,’ riding the third rail of the Underground Railroad to freedom. A million blacks had linked themselves to the Harriet Tubmans and the Frederick Douglasses and Sojourner Truths and Marcus Garveys and W.E.B. DuBoises and Martin Luther Kings and El Haj Malik El-Shabazzes. Still, we were not free.”

“Huey had created his Black Panther Party with both his brilliance and his madness. Now I was chairman of that party. I was afraid. The question was whether I held a scepter of terror or a sword of freedom. The question was whether to go or to bide.

“The answer came in the echoing cries of Mrs. Huggins and Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Jackson and the other hurting mothers who had given their sons to our struggle. It was in seeing the sum of the bits and pieces of my thrity-one years.

“The answer was love – the love that was inside the madness. It was about not forgetting. It was about living and about dying for freedom. I had to hold on.”

Elaine Brown did hold on. She held on to the bits and pieces of a fragmenting movement. She held on and raised a child. She held on and left the Party to find freedom in a new way. She held on as so many did before her and as so many have since. This holding on, this resilience, this is part of why I honor Black History Month.

I want to close with a short poem by Marilyn Buck, a recent ancestor of the struggle for liberation. A woman whose leadership as a white anti-racist leader must never go forgotten. A woman whose voice is needed during Black History Month to remind those of us who are white, that Black history is about us too — about when we choose to be allies or join in with oppression.

“To the Woman Standing behind Me in Line Who Asks Me How Long This Black History Month Is Going To Last”

the whole month
even if it is the shortest month
a good time in this prison life

you stare at me
and ask me why I think
February is so damn fine

I take a breath
prisoners fight for February
African voices cross razor wire
cut through the flim-flam
of Amerikkan history
call its cruelties out
confirm the genius of survival
creation and
plain ole enduring

a celebration!

…

the woman drops her gaze
looks away and wishes
she had not asked
confused that white skin did not guarantee
a conversation she wanted to have

she hasn’t spoken to me since
I think I’ll try to stand
in line with her
again

I want to stand in line with that woman. I want to stand in line with others and share why this month is so important. I want to remind myself over and over again the Black history is part of my history, is part of what shapes me as the person I am today. I want to dance in the celebration of the liberation stories. I want to cry in the face of the stories of suffering. I want to prepare for the ongoing work because we are far from done with the work we need to do. Lets talk openly and honestly about race and lets also organize authentically for the liberation of all people because truly we will be free when all of us are free.

It with sadness and deep concern for our Commonwealth that I write this letter today. I serve as the minister of the Community Church of Boston, a 90-year peace and justice congregation rooted in the city of Boston. Your choice, this past week, to overhaul the parole system in the way that you have is going to be devastating to the livelihood of my congregation.

It is without a doubt that the current parole system needs to be investigated and radically transformed. However, that radical transformation should be opposite from what you have done. It is a necessity, for the betterment of our Commonwealth, that more people are eligible for and granted parole, not less. This is deeply personal to the people in my congregation. There are those of us who are formerly incarcerated people and those of us who have loved ones who are serving time. We also have nearly a dozen members of the congregation who are currently incarcerated, individuals who are part of our essential prison ministry. When you make sweeping changes that drastically impact our community, we need to be involved in the decision-making.

One of our members, Stephen Metcalf, who is incarcerated in Gardner, wrote an article entitled, “The Case Against Parole.” His argument is very different from yours. He is familiar with the system as he is directly impacted by it. He suggests that, “parole is so defective and bureaucratically dysfunctional that it should be disbanded. The millions of dollars freed up will be infinitely better spent on ‘presumptive probation.’” This concept, presumptive probation would best serve all of us. All prisoners, all people incarcerated, need to live with the hope of returning back to their loved ones. All of us on the outside must be prepared for the challenges and joys of getting our loved ones returned to us. If you want to radically transform parole, make it so that all prisoners are given the resources they need to return back into their communities.

The death of Woburn police officer John Maguire is a deep, deep tragedy and my heartfelt condolences and prayers go to his family. A life taken can never be given back and what Dominic Cinelli did is inexcusable and seemingly unforgivable, his own death in the shootout is also a tragedy. However, this great loss is not the time to create more loss in the lives of tens of thousands of other people across the Commonwealth. Our prisons are desperately overcrowded and the individuals locked up in them are regularly denied the humanity and services they are entitled to as people in our Commonwealth. None of us wish to be defined as whole beings by single moments in our lives, we are all deeply complex with inherent worth and dignity, worthy of a community that will nurture us and hold us accountable to our shared values.

At this time, Governor Patrick, I hope that you will reconsider the action you have taken. Radically transform the parole system, but do so by releasing more people with greater support systems back into our communities, not fewer. My congregation will be there to help in this process and I know there are many others willing to step up as well. Please, sir, do not let tragedy foster injustice.

In Faith,

Rev. Jason M. Lydon

We, the members and friends of the Communty Church of Boston, are outraged at the travesty of justice that occurred on Friday, October 29th at the Moakley Courthouse. Our dear friend, City Councilor Chuck Turner, who has stood by us for many years, has our unwavering support and love. Many Community Church of Boston members were present throughout the trial. Chuck has long been a friend of the Community Church. He is a past recipient of the Sacco and Vanzetti Social Justice Award, and has championed justice in all of his work serving Boston. We stand with Chuck.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation targeted Chuck Turner as part of the government’s ongoing attempts to take power away from Black leadership. The actions of the FBI and the media are not unlike what was done to radical Black leadership through COINTELPRO in the 1960s and 1970s. This case is yet another example of the FBI campaigns to step up its targeted surveillance in progressive and radical communities around the country. Just as the FBI targeted communities in Chicago and the Twin Cities, we are seeing that targeting here. We know that the FBI does not work in isolation and as we raise our voice in support of Chuck we are also raising our voice in support of all people who stand up against racism and injustice.

As people who will not run from difficulty we know that the struggle continues. We need Chuck Turner to stay in his City Council seat. Many of us had the pleasure and joy to vote for him to represent us at City Hall. Chuck has overwhelming support from his constituents and should be allowed to finish his commitment to them. We hope that all the City Councilors have as much courage as Chuck does and vote to keep him on the Council to finish out his term.

While the current situation with the FBI, the Federal Prosecutors, and the conviction of Chuck Turner could turn us to hopelessness and fear we choose to celebrate and take action. We celebrate the great work Chuck has done and the incredible work he will continue to do. We know that Chuck will continue to show up for us. While we deplore the injustice that occurred on October 29th we are filled with hope because it is through our ongoing work, side by side with Chuck, that we will create the world we wish to see.

Sincerely,

David Broeg, President of the Board of Directors and Officers

Shaw’s Prudential Faces Action Supporting Striking Workers

Boston, MA- An action designed to put pressure on Shaw’s supermarkets to meet the demands of striking Methuen workers occurred at the Prudential Shaw’s this afternoon. Today at 2pm, a half dozen people went shopping at the Prudential Shaw’s. When they arrived at the checkout counter with full shopping carts, they asked to speak with the manager. They then explained they could not purchase anything at Shaw’s until the company’s management agrees to meet the demands of Methuen warehouse workers and negotiate for better pay and health care. After not receiving support for the workers at Prudential Shaw’s, the shoppers in the action left the store, leaving the full shopping carts of unpaid for items.

Workers at the Methuen Shaw’s warehouse have been on strike since March 7th after refusing to vote for a contract that had a 1% raise and included large increases in health care costs and would allow temporary workers to take their jobs. The workers were fired, and on April 1st, Shaw’s cut off the health care of the workers and their families, including children, pregnant women and those with serious medical conditions. There has since been one negotiation session on May 2nd with management and a mediator. Shaw’s newer offer in this session included wage decreases and removal of the workers’ health care plan, the pension plan for new employees, and seniority rights, and also contains measures that would result in the loss of jobs.

Shaw’s is facing pressure from several places in addition to a general Boycott of its stores. Unions and students have organized pickets at stores across Massachusetts, and supportive petitions have been signed by 40 leaders of faith communities. Doctors all over the country are signing on to a letter calling for the re-instatement of health care for the families of the striking workers. Senator Kerry and the entire Massachusetts Delegation has signed a letter asking Supervalu (Shaw’s parent company) to return to the bargaining table and negotiate in good faith. Councilor Felix Arroyo of Boston introduced a City Council resolution, which passed unanimously, calling for Supervalu to come back to the table. Resolutions have also passed in Malden, Revere, Cambridge, and Chelsea.

Jason Lydon, of the Community Church of Boston and a participants in today’s action at the Prudential Shaw’s stated, “We want to send a message to Shaw’s- until they meet with the Methuen workers in good faith, the Boycott will continue and there will be more disruptions like the one today.”

Following the action, one shopper who was walking out stated that he would not shop at Shaws or cross any picket line, he just didn’t know about the boycott. Because of today’s action Shaws lost at least one more customer until they agree to the needs of the Methuen workers!

Alysha going through the check out with over $300.00 in items that she did not buy because SHAWS IS UNDER BOYCOTT!

Dave in check out line with hundreds of dollars in items he didn’t buy because SHAWS IS UNDER BOYCOTT!

Ty in check out line with hundreds of dollars in items he didn’t buy because SHAWS IS UNDER BOYCOTT!

Anthony, lead organizer for Interfaith Worker Justice, explaining to the manager why we are boycotting Shaws. A conversation he had after he checked out with hundreds of dollars in items that he didn’t pay for because SHAWS IS UNDER BOYCOTT!

Jason being escorted out as he, loudly, informed the rest of Shaws shoppers about the boycott.

The evil Sheriff of Nottingham lives.  He lives in the person of the current Sheriff of Bristol County.

It seems that the Sheriff of Bristolham didn’t get the memo that said “being in prison” is the punishment.  He also didn’t read that piling on more and more punitive, degrading and mean-spirited sanction on peasant prisoners is really revenge and retribution.

The Sheriff of Bristolham violated the law by charging his peasant prisoners $5.00 a day.  He illegally collected well over $750,000.00 before the Superior Court and finally the Massachusetts Appeals Court told him he was a law breaker.  Ironically, many of his peasant prisoners were convicted and placed in his dungeon for stealing far, far less than $750,000.00.

The Sheriff of Bristolham then plotted and schemed to “right” this unmeasurable wrong perpetrated against him by the “liberal” Court.  He “coveted” all that free, no strings attached cash flowing into his Sheriffdom.  Cash he absconded from his peasant prisoners living in his dungeon.

Enter FOX 25.  With FOX 25 beating his drum the Sheriff of Bristolham began a campaign to legally steal peasant prisoner funds.  He created a scapegoat.  All prisoners – bad!  Sheriff of Bristolham – good!

Working the legislature like J.Edgar Hoover worked the Presidents he distorted the Massachusetts House of Representatives into supporting his scheme.  They voted to charge peasant prisoners $5.00 a day piling thousands of dollars of debt upon their backs.  Debt that follows them into their “free life” and is reported on their credit report.

On May 3, 2010 the Sheriff of Bristolham appeared on the PBS Channel 2 show, “Greater Boston” with emily Rooney.  Regaled in all his gold leafed finery, he presented a picture of royal splendor, the image of princely power befitting a sheriff of the realm.

His television appearance in a format other than FOX 25 was fraught with mis-statements, fabrications and outright distortions.  Emily Rooney was having none of this, dismissing his false assertions that prisoners enter prison with thousands of dollars in their pockets and are picked up in limousines.  The representative from Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, now called Prisoner’s Rights Coalition, neutered all the Sheriff’s distortions exposing them for what they were.

It soon became obvious that the Sheriff of Bristolham was seeking to impose a fee that served no penal purpose.  The $5.00 a day fee was simply a vindictive and thinly masked scheme to drain peasant prisoner accounts under his care and custody.  He conspired a way to legally steal peasant prisoner personal funds positing, “If families of peasant prisoners have money to send prisoners then I shall garnish it for my treasury.”  The Sheriff of Bristolham would punish peasant prisoners further by denying them even minimum canteen.

At the same time he could punish families of peasant prisoners by gouging their pockets, and in the process creating a 21st Century version of a 17th Century debtors prison.  Sheriff of Bristolham – Good!  Prisoners and their families – Bad!

The bane of prisoner canteen is Keefe Canteen Corporation.  In this case, however, they have come the advocate for prisoners.  If the Sheriff of Bristolham has his way virtually no prisoner in Massachusetts will have the funds to purchase canteen.  Keefe Canteen Corporation sales will crash.

Putting Keefe aside, the real philosophical intent of the Sheriff of Bristolham is “mean-spirited nastiness!”  He will not accept the fact that “being in prison” is the punishment.  He is hell bent and determined to bring every prisoner in his dungeon down into a state of animal encagement.  If that means reducing every prisoner in the Commonwealth to total degradation then so be it.

When I came to prison in 2002 I arrived with $35.00 in my pocket.  I had already lost my job, my house, all my possessions and my good credit.  I arrived with only the clothes on my back which the prison promptly took away.

I did not arrive in a limo.  I did not have thousands of dollars in my court clothes or $300.00 sneakers or the best jeans.  In truth, neither did most everyone else I know in prison.

In 8 years, working at from .50 cents a day to $3.00 a day I have saved the princely sum of $985.00.  Upon release this money will hardly pay rent, food, clothing, prescriptions, drivers license, phone, transportation, training (God knows the prison provides none), and other assorted expenses, until I get a job and get back on my feet.

Under the Sheriff of Bristolham’s scheme I would leave owing about $14,600.00 with no money to get back on my feet.  Let me ask, Sheriff of Bristolham – good?  Prisoners and their families – bad?  Every right thinking person that considers the Sheriff of Bristolham’s plan knows that it is bad if not down right evil!

The real Sheriff of Nottingham was taken down by Robin Hood until the good King Richard the Lion Hearted returned from the crusades.  The real Sheriff of Bristolham needs to be taken down by the State Senate or the Governor.  Schemes such as this need to be fought with all the vaolor and integrity a modern day Robin Hood can muster.

Then hopefully the good people of Bristol County with former peasant prisoners and their families will vote to elect someone willing to put “correction” back into Corrections.  Once and for all – voting to eliminate retribution, vindictiveness and the Sheriff of Bristolham’s pompous self-righteous pride.

Prior to joining the ranks of peasant prisoners at Gardner, Steve Metcalf was a published author of humorous political commentary.  He is currently working on three books dealing with prison life, the parole board, and spirituality in prison.  He is wrapping up in a few years.  He is a proud prisoner member of the Community Church of Boston.

Reading – Luke 1:26-52, 2:1-20 (http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+1)

This is a story about miracles! This is a story about the endless possibility of hope! It is absolutely true that we could spend this entire morning discussing the complications, hypocracies, doubts, and even oppressiveness of this story. We could talk about the commercialization of Christmas. We could talk about the seemingly coerced and miserable family time so many are forced into during this season. We could indeed do all of that, but today, I am not going to. Today I want us to find reason to celebrate! It is cold outside and snowing yet we have come together for the purpose of being in this community and listening to one another’s words during a season of light and liberation. Beverly Harrison, womanist ethicist and theologian reminds us in her “Dance of Redemption” that in our movement towards revolutionary transformation we must take time to celebrate along the way. Unfortunately we are yet to reach that promised land we are striving for but if we want to survive and make it further along the road or continue in our wild, whirling dance then we need to celebrate our little victories and open our eyes to the bigger ones. What is happening in Copenhagen right now is a travesty. The powers that be are continuously making choices that affect other people without truly taking into account the sacredness and worthiness of the lives that their choices are actively destroying. But there is still reason to celebrate. Thousands, over a hundred thousand, people have been in Copenhagen standing up to the violence of these institutions. These people are using their voices, their bodies, and their spirits to announce how we can do things differently. We have reason to celebrate because we know that where ever there is oppression there will always be resistance!

During our Sacco and Vanzetti award service a month ago we listened to so many wonderful people tell stories about our local heroes, Joyce and Mel King. Both Joyce and Mel shared their wise words with us. Mel, specifically challenged us to change our language. I wrote about this in our December newsletter, so this might sound somewhat familiar. Mel suggested that we need to let go of our dependence on the language of hope. Mel cautioned us about the inaction that can come from hope and the lack of accountability that accompanies hoping for leaders to make the changes we wish to see in the world. Rather than rely on hope Mel pushed us to build on our expectation. When we expect change, expect justice, expect compassion, expect freedom, the emphasis is placed on proactive involvement of all involved in the expectations. Rooting ourselves in the power of expectation can fill us with the capacity to overcome our fears of losing or fears of being let down. Expectation is an actively powerful force that challenges the power structures to act differently.

I do not contest that expectation is a vital strength for us to have both as a community and as individuals. However there is also much strength in relying on hope as well. Hope is what I feel filled with when expectation has worn out. Hope is what I am filled with when I think about the future of our planet. Hope does not lead to my inaction but rather fills me with the fuel I need to continue when doing so feels impossible. Hope is that brilliantly exciting song that comes on and fills my ears, keeping me on the dance floor even when I am dying for a drink of water. Hope is what Mary was talking about when she proclaimed the future of her divine son. Not only did Mary expect this child of hers to do the incredible and seemingly impossible, she hoped for his strength as well. In a time when wealth distribution and power was so unequal and the people were under occupation of the Roman empire sometimes the only thing left was the hope one could have for the future of their children. Mary proclaimed that the child soon to be born from her would, bring the powerful down from their thrones. Mary was declaring the hope that was burning as a fire within so many of the Israelites, hope that Emperor Augustus would be toppled down and those he was standing upon would be able to get out from under his weight. Mary sang the hope of the people that was for the hungry to be filled with good things and for the rich to, finally, go away understanding the plight of the poor. Mary was hoping for compassion and strength. Not only was Mary magnifying the works and purpose of God she was magnifying the works and purpose of the Jewish people who were suffering. Mary wanted things to be different. Mary agreed to take action and live with the expectation that things would be better and she also drank from the sustaining water of hope as well because it could keep her going.

I also like to imagine hope as that warm blanket that comforts me when I find myself turning towards fear. In this story of Christmas there are magnificent angels that appear with incredible stories of hope that are supposed to diminish our fears. I want you to put aside your possible doubt in the existence of angels and instead imagine first Mary being approached by a heavenly angel who declared to her, “Be not afraid Mary, for you have found favor with God.” Gabriel knew that Mary might be scared by the presence of the angel. Angels did not always bring good tidings and joy but could also bring death. However this angel, Gabriel, was bringing only good news of hope that things were going to be different. A new day was dawning and Mary, if she so wished, could have something to do with it. So Mary, feel the strength of hope and release your fears for the love of God is upon you and a hopeful future is before you!

Angels appear again in this story. These angels light up the sky and sing out on the tops of their angel lungs, proclaiming that peace is coming to the earth and that the shepherds should take notice and get a move on. Again, the message of hope these heavenly hosts bring with them is that things are going to be different. Not only will things be different, but a baby, a lowly poor child who lies sleeping in an animal feeding trough is the message of hope. Hope is humble! Hope likely comes along with some doubt at times. I can only imagine hanging out in the fields with my sheep when all of a sudden the sky is filled with singing beings telling me that I have to get up and go some distance away to see a newborn infant who is supposedly going to bring a new era. I am not sure that the kind words of, be not afraid, would really cover it for me and immediately move me to hope but for the sake of the story I am willing to go with it. These shepherds likely were unable to expect things to change. Ancient Palestine had been suffering for a long time under occupation. It is painfully hard to expect things to change when suffering is so great. However these angels brought with them a message of hope and that hope can be a gift that makes it possible to keep going. The hope of those shepherds might not be so different from the hope many people in prison hold onto that one day they will be on the outside again. The hope of those shepherds might not be so different from the hope someone struggling with a terminal illness has that their suffering will come to an end. Hope might be the only thing left for some of the people who are newly homeless here in Boston who are struggling under the cold of this snow. So while I will always hold on to expectation I cannot let go of the beautiful power of hope.

The celebration today cannot be one of only quiet listening. The story of Christmas is one of great joy. Joy that a baby was born. Joy that things are changing, and as we will talk about more in a moment, joy that magic is still alive and thriving in the mystery of Santa Claus. So I want you to reach into your inner most being and find that booming sound of joy that is dying to get out. Your sound may come in the religious language of our Jesus story, maybe you’re dying to shout out, HALLELUJAH! Maybe you’re feeling more secular humanist this morning and you just want to shout out, YES! Whatever it is I am hoping that inside you there is a sound of joy bubbling to get out. So, put away your annoyance at the long lines at the grocery store. Put away your frustration with the tragically few Christmas movies out this year. Let go of the current quiet and help me make a cacophony of joy right now!

Excellent! Thank you! I needed to feel the energy that we can create together. To turn to another story that is so important to Christmas I want to bring us back to the story of Santa Claus I shared earlier. When I was little I was convinced, absolutely convinced, that I worked for Santa Claus. I believed that when I went to bed at night sometimes Comet or Rudolph would come to my window, pick me up, and take me out to the North Pole to work on toys with the elves. I believed this with my entire heart. I would tell stories to my parents and to anyone who would listen about the hard work I was doing to be sure all the kids out there could get their toys on Christmas morning. I’m not sure I was as convincing as the Angels in the Jesus story were but I was sure to tell anyone who would listen that Santa and I were best pals and I could hook them up with some toys if they needed.

Santa Claus is magical. Santa has a workshop where unfortunately the ground underneath him is melting due to global climate change but yet he is still there making toys and helping parents con their small children into being good during the month of December. The magic of Santa is not actually that different from the magic of Jesus, something one might not want to say while at a conservative Christian service, but I feel pretty safe here. I have been writing a paper the past few days about grace. The best parallel I have been able to come up with for grace to help me better understand it is magic. When I think of magic I am not thinking of the magicians that do tricks at children’s parties or at overly priced shows in Las Vegas. Rather I am thinking about the magic revered by many earth traditions and pagan religions. My teenage wiccan self spent a lot of time reading spells and turning to the gift of infinite magic. This magic is that abundant existence of love that makes it so that things seemingly impossible just seem to happen. Magic is what is playing out when a queer teenager is able to get through the day of harassment of school. Magic whirls around our universe and touches unbelievable situations of struggle. Starhawk, who I find myself chucking on the inside as I reference, often talks about the magic that is present at protests against imperialism. Magic protects people and gives them the capacity to keep going. Certainly it is fine and reasonable to explain away magic by talking about scientific, pure coincidence or statistical probability. I however have chosen to believe in magic during the season of Christmas because it just feels good to do so. Magic gives me hope that we can be better than we are and that we don’t have to do it alone. Magic is that dancing goodness in the universe that gives gifts to those in need. Unfortunately we all know that bad things happen all the time that are unexplainable. I do not want anyone to get the idea that I am suggesting that magic or hope makes bad things go away or that they make possible some kind of cosmic equal distribution of suffering. Sadly the bad things don’t just go away because we believe in magic and hope. What magic and hope are capable of doing is helping us as a community continue to survive and thrive even as the bad things are continuing to happen. Magic and hope are what get me to show up when doing so feels too difficult. If magic can make Santa reach the millions of children that he needs to on Christmas morning then it can certainly help us take action to end the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. If hope can fill the body of Mary and the Shepherds in ancient Palestine then that same hope can fill us and all those working to put an end to the Israeli expansion in the West Bank and Gaza.

These are things I have to offer to you on this snowy morning. Tomorrow is the shortest day of the year with longest night. Take some time to think about the wonder of our planet that spins so incredibly fast and rotates around the sun fulfilling our global purpose in the universe. We can explain so much with science but offer yourself permission to accept the solution of magic when you think about some of the unanswerable “why’s.” And turn some of yourself over to hope. Hope that things can be different and take the necessary action to get us there. Hope for love to overcome the power of fear; and do what you need to in order to move yourself there. Hope that the joy of the Christmas story can radiate through us as we go about our days in anticipation for the closing of this decade and a new beginning with endless possibilities.