Rev. Rali M. Weaver

First Church and Parish Dedham
“Economic Justice”

2/17/08

In the Fall of 2002, when I was still a seminarian I was asked to set up a film night at the First Parish in Portland, Mane (where I was serving as the lay chaplain). The film was a video of the Ware lecture given at the 2002 General Assembly. The speaker was Canadian Politician and broadcaster Stephen Henry Lewis who was then serving on the United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. In his speech he pointed out both the strengths and weaknesses of the United Nations and shared information about many under publicized events of the time, including the conflict in Rwanda and the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He commented that that "globalization does not seem able to deal with global problems." And that "Poverty is increasing and intensifying around the globe." Stating "half of the people of the world live on less than $750 per year."

His comments were mesmerizing and difficult to listen to and as the video completed and I began to try to facilitate a conversation with those present I quickly realized how uncomfortable the video had made the audience. “How can this be true?” One woman asked. “What can I possibly do about it? I didn’t know anything about this!”

I tried in vain to explain that the effects of the global economy, the genocide in Rwanda, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic had been drastically underreported in our country and this is why I was showing this lecture and this is why Stephen Lewis was speaking out. But her heart and mind could not be comforted because to her mind knowledge of the suffering could do no good if she could do nothing about it.

I bring this incident up because I believe it illustrates the type of blindness Mary Elizabeth Hobgood is talking about in our reading today. It is sometimes (albeit unconsciously) easier to remain blind to the whole picture- and unwittingly protect our own interests.

And I have been watching this in our papers recently – the way our government is countering bleak economic predictions with one solution- by lowering interest rates-- as though there is only one problem they are responsible to address that is created by the downturn in our economy.

To be honest I am less concerned with details of how to fix the problem and more concerned with how truly blind our government’s solutions seem to be in relation to the suffering of its citizens. I say this because as we talk of ‘recession’ we hear no predictions of how this downturn in our economy affects the work force or social security or any of the social services that serve the common good.

Just this week in our own local paper -the Dedham Times- it was reported that the Dedham public school is having difficulty balancing its budget due to increasing needs for services for things such as English as a second language and various Special Education needs. And the Norwood School Board is having a similar struggle and facing a 100,000-dollar deficit and unable to find places to, in good conscience, make more cuts.

The needs for special education are of course close to my heart, because of my many years as a teacher. From my perspective one of the first indicators of a bad economy is the rise in need for special education teachers --because children are often the most affected by the low wages of their parents. And we see this in an increase of children born with learning differences and an increase in behavioral issues reported in schools.

But our government is not mentioning how the rise in fuel costs, the rise in food costs, the rise in housing costs is affecting our children or our families or the unemployed or the homeless. We only hear about a plan to lower interest rates.

And it seems impossible sometimes to get an accurate picture of what is going on in our world. One problem is that for nearly a decade government programs have reclassified those who have been unemployed for extended periods as ''not in the labor force’’ so that unemployment numbers seem lower than they actually are. And we also know that businesses are relying heavily on temporary employees to whom they offer no benefits and countless workers are underpaid and or underinsured and piecing together Part time employment and unable to make ends meet. And this is not reported in any unemployment records.

But it is reflected in an increased need to subsidize things such as after-school care and school breakfasts and lunches. Not to mention increased traffic to local food pantries and soup kitchens and shelters.

The economic problems seem endless and it is difficult to get an entire picture.

How can we see the entire problem if the media, which we rely so heavily upon, offers only half of the picture and our government is only addressing a small part of the problem?

What liability we must accept? For not knowing? For not paying attention? For not attending to the civil rights of our neighbors? If we fully examine the problems, we can see many dividing lines, there are race lines and class lines, gender lines, and geographical dividers.

When I fully examine the issues in a holistic way it is impossible not to notice that purely because of the accident of my birth- being born white- being born to educated parents- that I have some privilege that another born in a different circumstance does not.

This does not mean I have not earned the success that I benefit from – but if I only pay attention to my effort and success I am blind to a big part of the problem.

Last winter when I was in Guatemala I went to visit a preschool for children who lived near the resort where I was staying. Many of the children had no shoes, or clean clothes, their school did not have books and their classrooms had few materials and my tour guide told us that many of the children spoke only the indigenous language and could not understand Spanish. But what struck me immediately was how similar each of those children were to the ones I was serving at King’s Chapel. They liked to draw and play games. They thought lots of things I did were funny. And what dawned on me was that the only real difference between these children in Guatemala and the ones on Beacon Hill was that one set of children were born in Guatemala and the other on Beacon Hill.

As adults it is easy to over look how the accident of our birth has increased our chances for success and focus solely on our efforts and merit--- because when we fully examine the privilege of our birth the sense of hopelessness that can be attached to having what we need when much of the world is suffering can be great. And I would argue that the heart wrenching truth of the discrepancy between wealth and poverty is what keeps us all from looking at the issue directly.

But I believe our spiritual solution is simple.

As many of you know I served my internship in the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco. While there I was able to take part in several of the Faithful Fools Street Retreats. The Faithful Fools is program that is part of the mission of the UU Church of San Francisco. And its purpose is to serve as a social witness to homelessness in San Francisco. If you aren’t already familiar with it Social Witness is concept grounded in the Buddhist concept of interconnectedness and is an attempt and awakening us.

Basically what the Faithful Fools do with their Street Retreats is offer people an opportunity to spend the day or a weekend or a week, on the streets as a homeless person. I only participated in the daylong retreats. On the day retreat you walk around the Tenderloin district of San Francisco and eat at one of the soup kitchens or go hungry, struggle with the same issues as a homeless person such as where to find a bathroom and how to get out of the rain, and you would talk to other people on the streets.

At the end of the day the street retreaters meet and discuss their thoughts and impressions. What came out of these events was always a sense that the dividing lines between us and them are imaginary and that there is no real separation between those who have and those who have not.

A mantra that came out of one of the first retreats is, I believe, the spiritual solution to our dilemma of wealth and poverty. The mantra is this:

What holds us separate, what keeps us separate. Is not as much as what still connects us.

As long as we live in the illusion that were are separate, and hold ourselves as separate the solutions to injustices will be lost to us. And it will only be in recognizing our interconnectedness that justice will be found.

If we are ever to create a truly just society we must fully examine our individual and collective place of privilege.

Finding ways to broaden the conversation to include all voices is the necessary first step in uncovering the web and building bridges. What we need and what we can do is form more connections. And this will set us free.

May it be so