2010 DACPA Speakers
Series
Saturday, August 7, 2-3:30pm
Susanne Johnson, Phd,
Youth, Social Justice, and Empire
Join other progressive Christians for an excellent speaker and
our annual summer "ice cream social." Northaven United Methodist
Church, 11211 Preston at Northaven.
Saturday, October 9: Theo Walker, PhD, on "The Elimination
of Poverty"
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Who do we walk with?
The first of our four Good Friday Walk reflections comes from Dr.
Ruben Habito, a professor who teaches interreligious perspectives in
spirituality and mysticism at Perkins School of Theology at SMU. Dr.
Habito is the author of several books: Experiencing Buddhism: Ways
of Wisdom and Compassion (Orbis Books, 2005); Living Zen, Loving God
(Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004); Healing Breath: Zen
Spirituality for a Wounded Earth (MKZC Publications, 2001);
Originary Enlightenment: Tendai Hongaku Doctrine and Japanese
Buddhism (International Institute for Advanced Buddhist Studies,
1996); and Ministry and Theology in Global Perspective: Contemporary
Challenges to the Church, co-edited with Don Pittman and Terry Muck
(Wm. Eerdmans and Co., 1996).
I'd like to offer some pointers for us to experience in a more
enhanced way the significance of this event that we are
participating in together.
This is Good Friday. Today we have an important image in our mind
that you all came here to relive. So the first question I would like
to offer for us to ask ourselves is, Who are we walking with in this
Good Friday Walk? Who are we walking with in this way of the cross
on Good Friday?
The cross is a symbol of violence, the violence that happens to
us because we are vulnerable creatures. The violence that nature can
bring to us, but also, most importantly, the violence that human
beings bring upon other human beings. We are all victims of that
violence. And there was a man two thousand years ago who bore the
brunt of that violence in his body, and the violence continues now.
This is indicated in the signs we are carrying. The 25,000-30,000
children under the age of 5 who die daily because of hunger or
malnutrition and related causes, about 11 to 12 million per year,
and that goes on. The people who are displaced from their homes
because of threats to their lives because of military violence, or
because of political, social, economic issues-those who are called
refugees. People who are not regarded as human beings by their
fellow human beings for many different reasons-race, color of skin,
religion, or sexual orientation, they are on the cross today.
So we are invited to breathe with them and walk with them with
each step. A couple of suggestions as we walk from station to
station. This is a meditation, so as we do so, two points I would
like to offer for our own attention. First, the breath. As we
breathe in and breathe out, let us recall that each breath is a
gift, from the same source that gave us this life. In our Christian
vocabulary, that is espiritus sanctus. Espiritus is from espirare,
to breathe, or the ruah of the Hebrew language, that breath that
makes the earth what it is, the breath that all of our fellow
living, sentient beings receive. So let us pay attention to that
breath and we will experience more profoundly with whom we are
breathing. And look at the signs again to see, to get indications of
who they are we are breathing with and walking with.
Secondly, let us also pay attention to our steps. As we step,
each step is a way of giving our bodily presence and walking with
all of those that we want to represent: the 46 million without
health care, those who are sick, those who lack access to clean
water, the unemployed and underemployed, not just in the US but
throughout the world. Let us have that global scenario in our minds
and in our hearts as we walk each step.
And thirdly, and the last point I would like to offer as we go,
last night, many of us may have joined in the Eucharistic
celebration commemorating the institution of that precious
celebration that we continue every Sunday and the central words
offered there are, "This is my body given for you." That's an aspect
that I would also like to offer as we walk together, perhaps in
groups of two or three: "This is my body given for you." As Jesus
offered his body for all of us, we are also invited to take that and
resonate with that and make those words our own. This is my body
given for you. For whom? For "I was in prison and you did not visit
me," the one in 100 incarcerated. Those who are denied food stamps.
Those who are in pain because of the way they are treated by their
fellow human beings. Let us listen to them and respond: This is my
body given for you. So I would like to recommend that we walk in
that meditative way, so that we can experience the significance of
this event. And I thank all of the organizers of this event and
everyone who is here together so that we can really share in the
bonding that this event on the cross brings to us.
