Custody of the Eyes

I've been blogging long enough to remember when blogs were often curated lists of links, pointing (eventually one hoped) to interesting reading. Now there's Twitter for that. Which is where I encountered Terence Sweeney's two beautiful pieces (in Plough and in Macrina) on those who find their way into our churches.  The subsequent conversation on Twitter sent me hunting for this piece I wrote almost a decade ago for a now defunct blog on Ignatian spirituality, during a previous sabbatical leave. 

As I get ready to write my report to the college detailing conferences attended, talks given and manuscripts written — essentially answering the question "How have I grown as a scholar during these past five months?"— I'm prompted to think if I've grown at all as a person since this last leave. Do I have sharper eyes for the poor? Do I attend to those I see on the margins? How do I live out the preferential option for the poor? 

A version of this essay appeared at This Ignatian Life in March 2012.

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I spotted him a block off, a bubble of space surrounding him on the crowded sidewalk as the on-their-way-to-work crowd gave sea room to his awkward, rolling gait.  His oversized black sneakers gaping open, nearly engulfed by his coat and clutching his cane like a staff, the young man painfully made his way along Chestnut Street. No one would meet his eyes.  

City dwellers practice an unsympathetic custody of the eyes.  Do not acknowledge with even the flick of an eye what — who —  stands on corners, crouches over steam vents or sits plastered against the walls of buildings.  Do not accord the pleas for food or for money a space in your conversation, not even for a single beat.  It’s safer, they say.  So we walk with eyes locked straight ahead, doggedly intent on our conversations.    

I’m on sabbatical leave from my teaching job this semester, doing research at an archive in the city, traveling several days a week from my sedate 1950s neighborhood in the suburbs into Philadelphia.  A leave is a gift of almost unimaginable luxury, time to be spent lavishly on a project of one’s own choosing, to gaze at new horizons and grapple with new and perhaps challenging ideas.  

I spend my days in a sumptuous and silent 19th century reading room, soft carpets scattered about the polished hardwood floors, and a magnificent gallery of paintings on the mezzanine above my head, served by a staff of librarians who at my merest whisper bring me whatever materials I desire.  Whatever I hunger for —  books, consultation with learned colleagues, a cup of tea —  is there.  There is almost no need to ask; in stark contrast to the sidewalk outside, people are attending. 

Two summers ago, on my way to this same archive, I crossed Market at 7th and slid between the line at the food cart and the walls of the Free Library. The woman was heaped on the walkway to the library. Her green aluminum cane made a sharp contrast to the sun washed red brick of the entryway. She slumped over her belongings, asleep, exhausted already by the heat that had just begun to rise. Her lined face, pink with heat, was turned to passersby. She looked like my mother, shifting restlessly in pain.

I stood there for a fleeting moment. I wanted to reach out and hold her. I wanted to bring her to a cool, safe space to sleep. I wanted to ask what she needed. I wanted to help. And yet...I did none of these things. I walked on down 7th, headed to a cool, dry archive where a librarian would bring me the books I desired, without my lifting more than a finger.

We issue lists of grave sins, delicta graviora.  We wrangle over translations, theological nuances and liturgical praxis.  We worry whether we are sufficiently reverent with the body of Christ when we receive in the hand, and all the while the body of Christ lies crumpled and abandoned on the sidewalk. And I walk past, averting my eyes. 

“And what about His hunger, cold, chains, nakedness and sickness? What about His homelessness? Are these sufferings not sufficient to overcome your alienation?” challenged John Chrysostom sixteen centuries ago.  How can you continue to walk through the city, pretending not to see, failing to recognize what is before you?  It’s not just new perspectives in science I seek on this sabbatical. What about His homelessness?  I chose to work in the city on this leave, not just because the materials I needed were here, but because I wanted to look at this horizon, to struggle with my response to these challenging questions.  To face what I had walked away from two summers previously.   

Inside the library, I continue to map out the threads of challenging conversations in chemistry.  On the sidewalk outside the library, I’m grappling with challenging conversations as well.  I hear John Chrysostom’s voice in my ear, “is this not sufficient to overcome your alienation?” and try not to look away, try to attend to the person of Christ in “distressing disguise”.

When I met the eyes of the young man on the sidewalk this week, he stopped in front of me and asked in a gentle voice, “Do you have anything to eat?” “Let me help.” I dug into my purse and pulled out one of the envelopes I now keep handy and handed it over. It’s a card for a cafe and take out place with enough on it for breakfast and lunch and a cup of coffee.  He thanked me and with not even a hint of rancor remarked, “No one ever looks at me, you know.  I didn’t think you’d stop, and I’m so hungry, I haven’t eaten in a day.”  I wished him a good morning, and turned to go up the marble steps to the library.  It’s a start in overcoming my alienation.  Next time, I’ll remember to ask his name.

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A bit more from the blog about the preferential option for the poor.

Column: Laudato Si': let us sing as we go

This column appeared at CatholicPhilly on 19 June 2015.

Let us sing as we go. May our struggles and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope. — Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ [244]

This morning I read Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ encyclical letter on caring for our common home, the Earth. All 40,000 and some odd words of it. It was a difficult read at times. Not because I lack the necessary background to appreciate either the science or the theology — I have a Ph.D. in chemistry, did some of my graduate research on atmospheric chemistry with Sherry Rowland, who won the Nobel prize for his work on ozone depletion, and have completed many hours of graduate theology course work — but because it brought into such sharp focus the challenges my most vulnerable brothers and sisters face and my role in them. In his letter, Pope Francis invites us to “become painfully aware, to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it.” [19]

Pope Francis begins by sketching out some of the most pressing and troubling difficulties facing creation: pollution, a culture of waste, climate change, reduced biodiversity and the need for clean water. As I read, I could hear the canticle of the three young men from Daniel whispering below the surface: “All you winds, bless the Lord … fire and heat, bless the Lord … all you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord!”

All of creation calls out the name of God, I am reminded, as I listen to the ways in which humankind has stilled some of the voices in that chorus, “making our earth less rich and beautiful, ever more limited and grey.” [34]

Coming so soon after the Easter season, where each week my parish began Mass by blessing water and sprinkling the congregation, I am struck by the pope’s attention to water. Water was created, we hear in the words of blessing, “to make the fields fruitful and to refresh and cleanse our bodies. You also made water the instrument of your mercy.”

Water is such a potent symbol of salvation. We are immersed in it at our baptism. We mingle it into the wine that will become our very life. Yet Pope Francis reminds us that most of our poorest brothers and sisters live where the water brings not life, but disease and death. Drought plagues farmers whose crops fail and whose land is mercilessly scoured away by the wind.

We must act boldly, the pope says, for the sake of “the sufferings of the crucified poor and for the creatures of this world laid waste by human power” [241]. While much of the work must be done as communities and nations, each of us, he says, can follow the example of St. Therese of Lisieux and undertake simple acts with love. [230] Such actions “call forth a goodness which, albeit unseen, inevitably tends to spread.” [212]

Recycle and reuse what you can. Don’t waste food. Turn off the air conditioning. Say grace before meals. Keep the sabbath. Celebrate the Eucharist. Simple daily gestures that break us of the habits of selfishness, and push back against a throw-away culture.

Despite the headlines that say, “Pope aligns himself with mainstream science on climate change,” at its heart this letter is not about whether we should be for or against climate change; the science is, in fact, quite settled.

This teaching document demands all of us recognize the particular vulnerability of the poor to ecological damage and open our hearts and our minds to see how we might treat our common home so that all, but most of all the poor, might live with dignity.

Let us sing and praise the Lord, as we go. Laudato si’, mi’ Signore!

What to wear to Mass: Pajamas

Even now,
decades after,
I wash my face with cold water –

Not for discipline,
nor memory,
nor the icy, awakening slap,

but to practice
choosing
to make the unwanted wanted.

— Jane Hirshfield "A Cedary Fragrance" from Given Sugar, Given Salt

I spent last night as portress at the local shelter. Three little babies in residence, all of whom woke up simultaneoulsy at 10 pm, sending their mothers — gathered wearily at the table for a late dinner — scrambling back to their rooms, and thankfully not waking the overdone two year old who had finally surrendered to sleep.

The weather was unexpectedly cool and as midnight crept around, I wished for the sleeping bag I bring in the winter to spread on the cot by the door.  I pulled an extra blanket from the cupboard, and pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up.

The van came and picked up the guests at 6:25 and I did a last sweep of the common room to tidy up the coffee making gear before dashing across the parking lot to make the 6:30 am Mass, wearing what I'd slept in the night before.  My companion on the night shift, who spent the night on a bed set up in one of the offices down the hall, was standing by her car running a brush through her hair.  Having forgotten mine, I joked that at least one of us would be presentable.

The whole scene reminded me of the morning services in some of the Buddhist temples we stayed at in Japan, people coming from every direction at the sound of the bell.  My colleague, who spent time in a Buddhist monastery, recalled that one day the abbot sighed to him in a conference, "at least you could wash your face before you come!"

I had at least washed my face, even if I was wearing what I had slept in. And much of the night was spent practicing making the unwanted, wanted.

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And yes, I went to Mass in sneakers wearing slept-in clothes with bed tousled hair, smelling faintly of l'eau de baby drool and I still believe in the Real Presence.  I washed my face, O Lord!

Listen to Jane Hirshfield read "A Cedary Fragrance"

Spiritual Exercise: It's a small world

At People for Others, Paul Campbell SJ has posted a rundown on the world if it were reduced to 100 people.  The video clip here shows a similar breakdown.  We've become so inured to percentages, 14.5% of people in the US went hungry at some point last year, the top 1% of wage earner took home 20% of the total US earned income, it can be hard to get a gut feel for what they mean to people, to put faces to numbers.  One percent seems different, smaller somehow, than one person in a hundred — or one person I know.

Crash gave me a great book for Christmas about sticky ideas (Made To Stick), and the miniature earth concept is by their definition, pretty sticky.

So I'm trying this as a spiritual exercise, in the spirit of St. Ignatius' First Week.  Take the percentage du jour from the news, or one that is close to my heart.  Now imagine it reduced down to 100 people. Twenty of one hundred people in the United States live in poverty or near poverty (for a single person, this means an income of less than $15,000 per year — roughly what you would make working full time at minimum wage with no vacations).  Now imagine ten close friends, and that two of them are living with such limited resources.  What would I say to them?  How would I share what I have with them?  How open is my heart to their needs in relationship to my own?