Both/And and Balance

The first week in Advent was a rough one for peace and justice this year.

On Tuesday our president asked for 30000 more troops to Afghanistan… on Wednesday the NY state legislature voted against gay marriage. Two police officers were shot in Rochester, and there was a shocking murder that touched our Unitarian friends, who are in our prayers.

Here at St Joe’s we learned of some complications in our efforts to get a young woman out of jail on bail so that she can have what we hope will be healing and strengthening time with her family before what looks likely to be a long stretch in prison, and realized once again how powerless we are in our attempts to bring life to a horrible situation.

Pain, pain, pain all around.

But there was hope, too. Friday we marched in opposition to the war, and there was such an energetic group of young people who organized the protest – such a sign of life and hope. These are the same kids who were beaten by the police when they marched in October – and here they were again, drumming and dancing and jumping up and down, with a more solid relationship with the powers that be and lots of communication having happened in the meantime – not all perfect or anything, but better, and no violence this time.

One of our guys who was in jail is out, and we’re glad to have him back. Tim and Tom are helping him think through how to respond non-violently when situations arise. Our renovation is almost complete, and the new windows let in all kinds of light. We can see the sunset out the window, now, all that pink evening light.

On Wednesday night there was a service for World AIDS Day that brought together people living with AIDS, people working with those who live with AIDS, people who care – people of many denominations, joined in a gentle service with lots of prayer and music and hope --- hope that we can build a more caring world.

Tuesday held for me not only the meeting at St Joe’s where we learned how complicated that situation is, with the young woman we’re trying to help get some time with her family --- a meeting in which those of us of the middle class were confronted with a need and had to each decide our personal response – more on that later --- not only that meeting, but also, earlier in the day, for me, a talk on Pulmonary Fibrosis – and my science work doesn’t often overlap with my peace and justice work, but the next morning I woke up and saw a connection, and saw some hope. So let me tell you about that.

First, the meeting. Here’s the thing: we live in a city, and a nation, where children are growing up in a level of despair and violence that most of us in the middle class can’t even comprehend. I’ve seen these kids, my children’s schoolmates, growing up attending city schools – I’ve seen how sweet kindergarteners are transformed in a few years to fourth graders with the light already gone out of their eyes. I’ve seen my daughters enter high school with two or three times the number of ninth graders that they ended up graduating with four years later. (That’s not a statistic, it’s a memory. Someone else will know the numbers). What happens to those kids? A lot of them end up on the street in one way or another – drugs being the case with this one young woman. Drugs and violence and eventually, jail.

So there we were, this group of committed, caring people, wanting to do what we could, trying to help find a way to get her out on bail for a few months that we hoped would be a healing and life-giving time for her. We did what we could, and it wasn’t enough, and then we were confronted with the need for signatures – people who would sign and be liable for $50K if she missed any of her court appearances. And none of us would sign. None of us felt that was a risk we could responsibly take. Fifty thousand dollars. Even if we have it – or have the equity in our homes – can we put our families’ well-being, our own well-being, on the line in the hope that it might help? Some risks you do take – but some are too much.

But it hurts, it feels – awful. Helpless. Aware of the disparity and unfairness that put one person in need of help, and others in the position of being asked for help and not giving it – for good reasons, but not giving it. Aware of the racial and economic differences, of the gulf between people with enough and people who live with chaos and lack of many things: funds, education, order, stability, safety, security, hope. If you’re a comfortable middle class person and you want to respond, to reach out in hope and healing and awareness – at some point you’re going to be confronted with the reality that sometimes, you can’t.

Second, the pulmonary talk. Now, I have to tell you – I’m not a scientist or a physician, and although by now I probably understand more of what’s said in these talks than I did years ago, I don’t follow them anywhere near as well as most of the other people in the room. But this one was particularly clear, with helpful illustrations from regular life – and I carried away two things.

One thing was that he was talking about looking at the effect of a particular cellular component (a cytokine – that just means, stuff floating around in cells) – on fibrosis in the lung. Fibrosis is scarring, and if you think about scars on your skin and how it makes the skin less flexible – well, scarring on the lungs, which need to expand and contract, is a problem. So he’s looking at this one thing and asking if having too much of it causes fibrosis – and what they learned in his lab was that not only does too much of this stuff cause fibrosis, so does too little of it. It has to be in proper balance.

The other thing was that he was looking at some stuff that shows up sometimes in the lungs – called fibrocytes – and wondering how they get there. Are they generated from within the cell, or brought in from outside? This is an important question because knowing if the problem is from the inside or the outside helps decide how to respond.

So both of those things happened on Tuesday – the talk on fibrosis, and the meeting about helping with bail. And on Wednesday morning I woke up and saw the connection.

That question – is the problem, and the response, inner or outer – that’s a question that touches everything I’ve written about here so far. Violence in the city. Violence in the world. AIDS. Are we – and others – personally responsible for the situations in our lives? Or is it a problem that’s outside us, a problem with a societal solution?

Well, we know this, don’t we? It’s both. Both/and. We are responsible for our own choices, and accountable for those choices. AND, the problems are bigger than any individual. Both/and. Isn’t that one of the central conservative/liberal disagreements? – It’s not just society, it’s individuals – AND it’s not just individuals, it’s society. So responses need to be both/and, as well.

And the other thing was about balance. That cytokine that causes fibrosis if there’s too much, or not enough. I was thinking about that in connection with self-interest, self-care. When there’s too much of it, we don’t respond to the needs around us – but if there’s not enough, we forget to take care of our own needs. I think that’s what this group was doing Tuesday night – finding that balance. There’s tension in staying in balance, a tension we felt that night. So what I want to do here is to acknowledge both the responsible albeit painful choices of the people involved ---- and the pain, the hollowness, of the reality of a young woman in jail after a life without much hope or life in it – the pain, the hollowness of the reality of our city – the hope of Advent and the shock of violence. Both/and.

Blessed Advent to you. Hang on to hope: the light is real, along with the pain.


Chava Redonnet
December 7, 2009

Previous Inspirations by Chava Redonnet:

Inspirations-October-2009

Inspirations-November-2009
Inspirations-November11-2009

Inspirations-November-18-2009

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