justice and collective liberation

Still I Rise

eamaya1 Prayers and Meditations

By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

 

Maya Angelou was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. 

Prayer for a Diverse Community

eamaya1 Prayers and Meditations ,

By Catholic Center for Concern’s Education for Justice

Creator of all races and ethnicities,
help us see that a diverse community is the way
to deepen our lives and to know you more deeply.

Guide us to see that entering into a vital and just relationship
with others who are different from us
is the way to make ourselves whole.

Guard us from fear of the other,
from the fear that our own security is threatened
if we become truly willing to make a place at the table for all.

Open us to live out what we profess to believe:

That our true security is in You and in your call to justice and peace,
That we are a part of your global family,
That, because of your Incarnation, the human dignity of everyone is sacred,
And that we are constantly called to conversion and inclusive community.

We pray that you help us recognize any forms of racism in our hearts,
And in our legal systems and social structures.
Forgive us our sins of exclusion.
Heal our souls and spirits.
Ground us in compassion for all through your grace.

Help us take the steps you call us to take
To build a more just community,
Where difference is respected
And where we can all join hands
And rejoice in the common good.

Through the mercy of God, we pray.

Amen.

What Shall I Render Unto God?

eamaya1 Prayers and Meditations

By E. Hammond Oglesby

In a world divided by hatred, render love.
In a world smashed by fear, render faith.
In a world burdened by ethnic strife in eastern Europe,
Render kindness over cruelty.
In a world torn by the Wall of shame,
Render the refreshing spirit of Glasnost and perestroika.
In a world smeared with the pain of hunger and homelessness, render food and shelter.
In a world tormented by the demons of sexism and racism, render equality and liberty.
In a world cursed by apartheid,
Render the joybells of freedom.
In a world that disvalues our children,
Render protection and compassion.
In a world unsure about the future,
Render the cup of salvation;
Render the shield of faith. Pay your own vows unto the Lord.

 

E. Hammond Oglesby is a Baptist Minister, author, and professor. 

Parable of the River

eamaya1 Prayers and Meditations

Once upon a time there was a small village on the edge of a river. The people there were good and life in the village was good. One day a villager noticed a baby floating down the river. The villager quickly swam out to save the baby from drowning. The next day this same villager noticed two babies in the river. He called for help, and both babies were rescued from the swift waters. And the following day four babies were seen caught in the turbulent current. And then eight, then more, and still more.

The villagers organized themselves quickly, setting up watch towers and training teams of swimmers who could resist the swift waters and rescue babies. Rescue squads were soon working 24 hours a day. And each day the number of helpless babies floating down the river increased. The villagers organized themselves efficiently. The rescue squads were now snatching many children each day. While not all the babies, now very numerous, could be saved, the villagers felt they were doing well to save as many as they could each day. Indeed, the village priest blessed them in their good work. And life in the village continued on that basis.

One day, however, someone raised the question, “But where are all these babies coming from? Who is throwing them into the river? Why? Let’s organize a team to go upstream and see who’s doing it.” The seeming logic of the elders countered: “And if we go upstream who will operate the rescue operations? We need every concerned person here.” “But don’t you see,” cried the one lone voice,” if we find out who is throwing them in, we can stop the problem and no babies will drown. By going upstream we can eliminate the cause of the problem.” “It is too risky,” said the village elders.

And so the numbers of babies increase daily. Those saved increase, but those who drown increase even more.

Of course, we need to do our part in rescuing those babies floating down the river. But we also need to take the risk of raising our voices and asking why.

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Four Roles in Social Change

eamaya1 Uncategorized

Helper

Effective:

  • Assists people in ways that affirm their dignity and respect
  • Shares skills and brings clients into decision-making roles
  • Educates about the larger social system
  • Encourages experiments in service delivery which support liberation

Ineffective:

  • Believes charity can handle social problems, or that helping individuals can change social structures
  • Focuses on casualties and refuses to see who benefits from victimization
  • Provides services like job training which simply give some people a competitive edge over other people, without challenging the scarcity which gives rise to competition

Advocate

Effective:

  • Uses mainstream institutions like courts, city hall, legislatures to get new goals and values adopted
  • Uses lobbying, lawsuits, elite networking/coalition-building for clearly-stated demands, often backed by research
  • Monitors successes to make sure they are implemented

Ineffective:

  • “Realistic politics”: promotes minor reforms acceptable to power-holders
  • Promotes domination by top-down professional advocacy groups
  • More concerned with organization’s status than the goal of their social movement
  • Identifies more with powerholders than with grassroots
  • Does not like paradigm shifts

Rebel

Effective:

  • Protests: says “no!” to violations of positive American values
  • Employs nonviolent direct action and attitude, including civil disobedience
  • Targets power-holders and institutions
  • Puts problems & policies in public spotlight
  • Uses strategy as well as tactics
  • Does work that is courageous, exciting, risky
  • Shows in behavior the moral superiority of movement values

Ineffective:

  • Promotes anti-leadership, anti-organization rules and structure
  • Attached to an identity as lonely voice on society’s fringe
  • Uses tactics without realistic strategy
  • Has victim attitude, behavior: angry, judgmental, dogmatic
  • Uses rhetoric of self-righteousness, absolute truth, moral superiority
  • Can be strident: personal upset more important than movement’s need

Change Agent

Effective:

  • Believes in people power: builds mass-based grassroots groups, networks
  • Nurtures growth of natural leaders
  • Chooses strategies for long-term movement development rather than focusing only on immediate demands
  • Uses training to build skills, democratize decisions, diversify and broaden organization and coalitions
  • Promotes alternatives and paradigm shifts

Ineffective:

  • Has tunnel vision: advocates single approach while opposing those doing all others
  • Promotes patriarchal leadership styles
  • Promotes only minor reform
  • Stifles emergence of diversity and ignores needs of activists
  • Promotes visions of perfection cut off from practical political and social struggle

The 100th Monkey

eamaya1 Guided Reflections
By Ken Keyes, Jr.
The Japanese monkey, Macaca Fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.
In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.
An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.
This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.
Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes–the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let’s further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.
THEN IT HAPPENED!
By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!
But notice: A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea… Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.
Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.
Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people.
But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!
From the book The Hundredth Monkey by Ken Keyes, Jr.

To Have Hope

arampone Prayers and Meditations

By the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo, Honduras

To have hope
is to believe that history continues open to the dream of God and to human creativity.

To have hope
is to continue affirming that it is possible to dream a different world,
without hunger, without injustice, without discrimination.

To have hope
is to be a messenger of God, tearing down walls, destroying borders, building bridges,

To have hope
is to believe in the revolutionary potential of faith.

To have hope
is to leave the door open so that the Spirit can enter and make all things new.

To have hope
is to believe that life wins over death.

To have hope
is to begin again as many times as necessary.

To have hope
is to believe that hope is not the last thing that dies.

To have hope
is to believe that hope cannot die, that hope no longer dies.

To have hope
is to live.

 

The Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo is a Catholic religious order that was founded in 1895. This prayer can be found in God’s Good Earth: Praise and Prayers for Creation (2018, edited by Anne and Jeffrey Rowthorn).