Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to that Makes Total Sense, a podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis Busetti, a Christian, aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same.
Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the how sometimes eludes us. That makes Total Sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners, and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day.
Okay, so I am so delighted today to welcome Sharon Rehbar to the podcast.
She and Reverend Liz Theoharis have co edited a beautiful volume called We Pray Freedom Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor.
And I have to tell you, Sharon, as I was reading through this, it. It was very compelling to me. Also very refreshing. I come from a background, really all the way through my young adulthood, where liturgies were not a part of my worshiping context.
There was, I would say there was.
Timidity might be a nice way to put it. I would also say there was even a little suspicion around certain liturgies in the context that I grew up in. I think that is somewhat common for people who grew up in evangelical. Evangelical adjacent spaces.
But the more that I have practiced the just liturgies in general, the more that I've been a part of worshiping communities where liturgy is a part of what they regularly do in worship, the more I come to appreciate it. There's so many things about liturgy that really call to us as worshiping people.
And so to be able to read these, to imagine the call and response, I felt really grateful. And I will say this up front to have this as a resource. You guys start the book by saying, please utilize this. This felt so needed. This just felt so needed. So that was a long intro for me to say. Thank you so much. Welcome to the podcast.
I'm so glad that you're here.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you so much for having me and excited to be able to talk with you about this book and this resource and yeah, really how you and others can be using it.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
So you and Liz put this together, but this is obviously the contributions are from so many different individuals and organizations. They cover a range of topics that we'll talk about.
And it really comes from at least the vibe that I got was from a similar heart with organizations that you and Liz have been involved in. And since you're here, I really one of those that's familiar to me but may not be to all of our audience. And I'm sure I will definitely learn something from you about this is the Poor People's Campaign.
So could you start off maybe, but just by sharing a little bit about your work with the Poor People's Campaign and Kairos, and maybe even just a smidge of that history to kind of contextualize our conversation as we talk about these liturgies in this book today?
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Sure. So I think I would first say that Reverend Liz and I have been working together for over 20 years now.
We both are part of the Cairo center. And the former organization was called the Poverty Initiative that was founded at Union Theological seminary back in 2004.
But that work really came out of years of poor people, poor families and homeless families organizing across the United States from back to the original Poor People's Campaign, which was launched by Dr. Martin Luther King and others in 1968.
And, you know, I think we for years have lifted up the Poor People's Campaign, the original campaign as this, you know, what Dr. King called the building of a new and unsettling force that was uniting communities across different divisions that were, you know, that we see so prevalent today that were there then as well. But whether it be divisions of race or geography or religious tradition, you know, that really what we saw is at the heart we needed to be able to come together to, you know, build something different. And Dr. King was calling for that in 1968, before he was assassinated. Bobby Kennedy was also working on that campaign and was assassinated. And so, you know, there were so many things it was just starting to do when it was launched. And, you know, it ended up, you know, people didn't stop doing the work, but they kind of went back to their communities and weren't working in a unified force in that same way. And so, you know, since our founding, we've continued to take up this task to build a movement that is led by poor and dispossessed people to end poverty and all the interlocking injustices. That's really rooted in that original Poor People's Campaign. And during the kind of when all these anniversaries were coming up at the 50 year anniversaries of Bloody Sunday, the March on Washington, and then eventually the Poor People's Campaign, we said, this can't be just a commemoration, right? It wasn't finished. It's left as unfinished business. And so, you know, we came together, the Cairo center and another organization called Repairs of the Breach, based out of North Carolina. And, you know, both of us had been doing lots of work organizing, you know, across the country.
Repairs of the Breach had been Organizing in North Carolina especially, and just needing to want that was. There was kind of a synchronicity in wanting to relaunch a poor people's campaign for today and to find a way to, you know, bring back that need. You know, there's lots of work happening, but how do we kind of bring it into a coalesced, new and unsettling force for this moment? And so, you know, that is. That is the work that we're still doing today of, you know, how do we unite and connect and deepen and strengthen the work that's happen all over. We talk a little bit about how do we nationalize local efforts, not build from the top down, but actually create enough connection and bring attention to what is happening in communities that are all over the country and really bring a shared strategy to that work.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: I would love to hang out here for a minute in on our. On our route to hang. To hanging out here. I want to say a little bit about the content of the book, and then I kind of put it in these two kind of overlapping categories. The first one is the categories that you all give of.
Maybe, I would say maybe, like the design of the liturgies, liturgies intended for remembrance and then intended for healing and transformation and for mourning. And you've got these chapters lined out. And then there's also these topical, like, injustices where we can see oppression happening, poverty, which is where I want to hang out, homelessness, healthcare system, these systemic injustices that we are remembering and mourning and trying to heal and all of these things.
And so I just want to say that that's kind of how the book is lined out.
I was thinking more in terms of these injustices. Like, this list of injustices kept coming to my mind. And when they were hit in each one of these different chapters kind of brought a new facet. It highlighted a new facet of these terrible injustices to me and helped me think about them in ways that maybe I hadn't before, hadn't spent much time, you know, kind of meditating on them in this way. And poverty was one of those for me.
Poverty as violence that you and the contributors lay out so clearly in this book was. I won't say it was jarring for me, but it was one of those where I'm like, let me sit with that. Let me sit with poverty as violence. Let me sit with poverty as systemic sin.
You know, I think that having been raised in American evangelicalism, my experience is that it has often been that the quote from Jesus about the poor Always being among you feels like this kind of hopeless or helpless thing, or as if poverty was somehow part of God's design for humanity.
And so therefore, I would say, speaking for myself only, this is easy to dismiss. It is easy to say, oh, this is just the way it is. Or it's easy to even look into some of these, you know, futuristic things and say, oh, but it'll all be better, you know, when Jesus comes.
Which is kind of a way to escape responsibility for what we see happening around us with our neighbors and friends. And so I would just love to ask you to speak on, you know, you don't have to choose the two phrases that I use that really stood out to me. But poverty is violence and poverty is societal sin. But talk about poverty. You're talking about poor people and dispossessed people uniting, working together. This is, as you note, for all we know, why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Was assassinated was his work advocating for poor people. And we forget that, you know, this was the work. This is upsetting to the system to advocate for poor people. So I don't have, like, a real question there, but I am just kind of like, can you talk about it? Like, talk about this?
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, this is really central to the work that we've been doing all these years, you know, and Reverend Liz actually has another book, always with Us, that really dives into that passage, right? The poor will always be with you. And she talks often how, how, you know, she's a Presbyterian pastor and says, there's not a day that goes by that someone won't bring that, you know, passage up. To me saying, this is why we don't really need to do anything about poverty, right. And being able to justify it. And, I mean, one thing that she'll say is that if you actually look at that passage, Jesus is actually referring back to Deuteronomy 15 in the Jubilee text in the Bible. And it's this text that says, you know, you know, the poor will always be with you if you don't follow the way of God. Right? He's not just kind of saying this out of nowhere. He is talking to other Jewish people that have read this text, right. Have read Deuteronomy and know that. And so he's not saying that, yes, poverty just, we don't have to do anything. If you follow the gospel. Jesus is constantly doing things to speak out against poverty and to speak out against the extreme wealth, right. In the. In the same time that we have poverty and this kind of abandonment in the midst of plenty, right? And so, you know, Jesus is hearkening back to the Hebrew Bible that says there is a bounty, there is enough for everybody. And actually our task is to be able to, you know, make sure that we bring about this kingdom of God here on earth, right? And so, you know, when we talk about then poverty is, is a sin, right? Poverty is a structural sin. And it's not to say that there, you know, we don't have to be accountable for our own actions, but we also, you know, there's so many places in our scriptures that also name these, you know, that they're talking to the nations, right. Not just to individuals. And we have to understand what that means, right. And that, you know, they're throughout, you know, the Bible constantly. It's this constant, like, you know, if you, you can, you can, you know, abstract other texts that only talk about one issue once. But this question of poverty and you know, of having rich when that wealth, when there is poverty is constant. It's a constant theme throughout the Bible.
And so, you know, in a way that's really condemning, you know, this existence of wealth in the midst of poverty. And so to say, you know, I think when we, we have the poor will always be with you idea, it also then leads people to say it's poor people's fault that they're poor, right. And it's a blaming and a shaming, right. And our society is so, you know, good. And we see that, you know, it's all, it's always been the case, but we see it really strongly now, especially with all of the kind of laws and bills being passed around, how we're treating, you know, house people that are houseless, right. And the, the bills around homelessness and anti camping and you know, it's a really, it's saying, you know, these are criminals, these are sinful people. And rather than the, the call to like, what do we do? Right. The Matthew 25 of like, what do we do? When are, you know, we see someone that doesn't have enough to eat, that is, doesn't have clothing, we are supposed to answer that call. Like that's our calling. And so, you know, that we really see that there's a, you know, not only is poverty sin, also there's an extreme violence in it when we know that people are dying every day because of poverty, right. And, and then again the interlocking injustices that come with it. And I just wanted to, Coretta Scott King actually had a quote that she used to lift up talking about this idea and and, you know, she would say, I remind you that starving a child is violence.
Neglecting school children is violence. Punishing a mother and her family is violence. Discrimination against working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical need is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence.
And I think, you know, we often, you know, poverty is, it's, it's, it's not great. But, you know, it's like it's just there and, you know, we can't really do anything about it. And rather than like, no there, we have to respond to this like, people are suffering, people are dying, and we have the resources to actually do something about it. And we have a biblical mandate to do something about it. So if we call ourselves Christians, right, that we have to not, you know, just think that, you know, maybe, you know, we, we offer food at a soup kitchen or, you know, offer clothing at a shelter or, you know, a food pantry or any of these places, but really we have to do those things and we have to do something to end the structural violence of, of the systems that continue to perpetuate poverty.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I'm liking where that, where you're headed there of we can do stuff individually.
Gosh, we've got to do what we, what we can for the systemic stuff. But then also as, as people of faith, this is part of what this book speaks to, is there is an angst that is not just worth acknowledging, but worth sitting in and collectively sitting in it.
Again, this wasn't something that was familiar to my practice for many, many years. But I don't know, maybe in the last decade or so, I kind of started paying attention to what was going on out there in some of the Christian communities that I wasn't at that time a part of.
And I'm seeing things like this. Marches, liturgies, songs.
I'm a big fan of the. The Porter's Gate, right? Where like, you know, like, let's. Let's sing about this. That is.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: This is.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: This ought not be.
Several years ago, I co led a study that my partner and I, we just kind of put together on Lament for a small group at our church. And we were just, you know, we're just kind of like, we don't really. We're not experts in this, but kind of what we know and especially when, when so much of American Christianity surrounding us can be like, triumphalistic, we can just say, like, hey, there's a lot of biblical precedent to say to God and to each other and to ourselves. And what we. The phrase we used was this Ought not be.
And, like, how can we, like, spiritually, you know, like, yes, we can do the individual action, which is, like, invaluable. We can do the structural things to whatever degree is available to us, and that is invaluable. And then what happened, I would say, like, it's intangible, this, like, spiritual recognition and collective recognition that whatever this is, this thing ought not be.
And together we say this thing ought not be. And we let ourselves sit with that reality.
And the groups that you guys have been a part of and have been in contact with are so good at leading those spaces of this ought not be was one of the things that I just kept this. This ought not be.
Do you have, like, an example, specifically talking about this poverty that you can think of? It doesn't be from the book. From the book or otherwise, where it was just a meaningful moment for you where people were coming together and whether they were saying this ought not be or they're saying, let's try to make a change, but that surrounds this, the serious, serious societal sin of poverty.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: So many.
Yeah, I think, you know, I could go through a number of examples. I want to say first, though, that I appreciate, you know, I think what your example and what you're sharing really brings up as well is, you know, I think when people don't know how to respond to the challenge and crisis that we see. And in some ways, you know, we only see maybe the marches that are out there or, you know, people, you know, partially, they're being categorized by mass media as riots, when really they're a whaling. Right? They're a whaling and calling out this hurt and pain that people are experiencing.
And, you know, I think partly what we are also trying to capture in this book is that communities are doing lots of different things that don't get picked up by mass media to confront this kind of like the mourning and pain that people are experiencing. Right. And so, you know, and organizing it is some of these major marches. But it's so many other things that are. That are what are bringing communities together and teaching people how to, you know, build a community and build power together to confront. But again, it's going back to this idea that we're not alone in this and that actually when we can come together, we can collectively, you know, change what's happening. And so I think might give a few examples, one that I was thinking about that's not in the book, but came to mind when you were talking.
We used to take folks to West Virginia and take folks from New York City and Detroit and Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, other places. But bringing people across these lines of division together. We used to do leadership schools and kind of immersive experiences to introduce organizers and communities to one another, because still, often we're, you know, we never meet each other. And that's part of kind of the. The tensions that we see, you know, building in our society is because we only learn about each other through what, you know, the media is putting out or what, you know, kind of narratives are being put out for us. And so, you know, we would take folks to a place called Caford Mountain, and there was a man there who unfortunately passed away too young now, but his name was Larry Gibson, and he was on this mountain. And surrounding his family home was a mountaintop removal site. And if anyone knows what a mountaintop removal, they basically blow up the mountains to get the coal out. It's a quicker way than coal mining, right?
And he was like, the one last standing space where all of the rest of the mountain had been destroyed. And he would bring people there to see what was going on. And he was fighting against mountaintop removal with others in West Virginia and others in the environmental movement.
But we would, you know, again, we would bring folks from inner city Baltimore that were fighting against low wages. We would bring folks from a group called Picture the Homeless here in New York City and that were fighting against, you know, displacement and extreme housing costs. And what folks realized together was, you know, the same banks that were funding the mountaintop removal were also holding on to large investments of property in New York City or, you know, building new stadiums in Baltimore and paying people less than living wages.
And in that moment, like, you know, we were thinking about all those things, and it was sitting in the pain that, you know, Larry telling this story about, you know, basically his family's burial ground was imploded by the, you know, exploding of the mountain, right? So generations that had lived there are, you know, their remains are no longer there. Something we are supposed to hold sacred, right of.
And there was disregard for both our humanity. Now, he was also under attack, constantly being shot at and harassed for standing up for this space and for generally all of creation.
But listening to his story, we had others from a group called United Workers and Homeless that were there, you know, sharing their stories, too. And, you know, in that space, being able to just absorb the enormity of what was happening and to committing ourselves, to being able to build something broader together to share Larry's story with others, to be able to, you know, that we needed what we knew in that moment was to build a movement, right. Larry couldn't defend that land on his own, but he needed all of us there as well. And on the mountain, you know, we also were able to stand with Larry and to sing together, right? And to think about, you know, the generations before us that had stood in spaces like this and committed themselves to being able to say, you know, there was a song that lifted up Ella Baker that we sang with Larry, that we who believe in freedom cannot rest.
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.
We who believe in freedom cannot rest.
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.
But we sang that together to say we were making a shared commitment to one another, right?
And that we would continue to carry Larry's story. And we knew that Larry was going to continue to fight with all of us for the intersecting injustices that our communities were facing.
One other story I'll share, too, is thinking about most recently, with a lot that's going on around migrant communities and people being kidnapped and detained, folks have been doing here in New York City, a kind of Jericho walk around the courthouses to let folks inside know that others are there standing with them. Right? And again, this just needing, you know, the space for letting people, you know, hear the lamenting and the wailing. And so, you know, they've been some silent marches, and then there have been spaces where people are just will stop and wail right in front of the courthouse and just continue to. Both for that public display of just this outcry of what's going on and taking the time and saying, you need to hear these cries because our communities are being torn apart unjustly.
And while the issue is immigration, why have people come and come to the United States is largely because of poverty, right? And. And war and people being displaced from their communities and. And looking just to, you know, create a life and to, you know, to have that then be, you know, very much torn apart in this moment and unjustly. Right. That not getting due process. Like, we have to wail about that. We have to lament that. We have to call it out for what it is and call out the injustice that we see and this community.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Thank you so much for that. I mean, two things that really, I just want to reiterate from what I. From what I heard you saying, is how important the communal aspect is.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: Being.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: Being together, being united in, you know, a cause, but also the witness.
You know, I just think, like, there. There are so many times in. In my life I'm going Through a new experience. You know, I often. I often share the story of one of my kids who, like, cried, like, a lot.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: A lot.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: And. And I had already had kids, so still, it wasn't my firstborn, but I already already had kids. And I remember one time going to the pediatrician, I was like, I just need you to tell me babies cry. Like, I know.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: It's like, I just need.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Like, I just need to normalize, you know?
And she was like, yeah, babies cry, and sometimes you can't do anything about it. Sometimes they're not hungry, they're not wet, they're not dirty. They're just. They're.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: They're just.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: They're just gonna cry. I'm like, okay. But I think the flip of that is also true. Like, sometimes we just need someone to acknowledge that what is happening to us is not okay.
This is not.
Maybe it's normal quote, but, like, this is. This is not okay. And so, like, the marching around the courthouse really resonated for me of, like, someone else seeing you, seeing what's happening with you and saying, not in my situation. Yes, babies cry. But, like, yes, I'm seeing you. And yes, I'm saying, I see what's happening, and I see what's happening is actually not okay. This isn't something that we're going to normalize and dismiss and say, yes, babies cry. All parents have to deal with it. You'll figure it out, they'll outgrow it, whatever. But it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, there is something. There is harm here. There is injury, there is injustice, there is oppression. You know, there is something happening here.
I also appreciate how you say these are interrelated injustices and this isn't. Okay, one of those.
You can respond to that, and if you want. But then I was thinking one that I hadn't. I jotted down real quick. Cause I was like, oh, yeah, Workers rights.
Oh, my. Oh, my goodness. This was one that. Again, like, yes, I had. I have exposure and all this, but.
But I thought the. The Black Friday liturgy. I don't know why this came to my mind when you were. When you were talking, but I'm like, this is one of those situations where this is overlapping and there are like.
Like the working, poor, oppressed, exploited, taken advantage of the rights that we.
Anyway, I feel like I could go on and on in that and just stumble. Just stumble my way through it. But.
Wow. But just the overlapping. I also have on my sheet of paper homelessness and the broken healthcare system that is Designed in a broken way.
All of these things are overlapping and people are affected by all of these in just many of these injustices at the same time. Not even to mention as you talking about with the mountain, like creation, care and all this stuff that's just, I mean, pollution in the same banks that are owning this, Owning this. I mean, this is a web.
Yeah, Sharon, this is a web.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think you hit on something that's really important that we normalize all of it. Right. It's just, you know, well, you know, why are people, you know, I think one of the interesting things when the pandemic hit too, right, with workers is, you know, you had a lot of people as the pandemic started to wear down and you had, you know, people being called to go back to work. One thing people realized, like one, you had people that were essential workers still, like they're being called essential and being paid poverty wages, not get, not actually themselves having access to health care. And yet, like, we're applauding them for going to work, but they're folks that had to go to work like to keep a roof over their head. And yet, you know, as we get to the end of the pandemic and, you know, there people don't want to go back to work. And you know, and it's like, well, why are we not acknowledging that people don't want to continue to be exploited? And like for a hot minute we had, you know, a glimpse of maybe a guaranteed income, you know, with the kind of, you know, subsidies that were put out during the pandemic because, you know, we were needing to get through that moment. But that's a reality that we could have, that's been in conversation for years. Right. And we have the resources to do it. Like, there are ways to restructure our economy that we aren't willing to actually explore. Because what drives our economy is the profits of, you know, those that are at the top and they don't actually care that, you know, people could be having much better working conditions, could have less hours, you know, all of these things. And you know, we just, it's a bootstraps mentality in this country, right? Like, pull yourself up from your bootstraps and you'll get out of poverty. And the reality is we need, in the current structure, we need thousands and thousands of low wage workers to be continuing to do the jobs as they're being done and connected to an unjust healthcare system where most of those jobs don't have health care. Not to mention that People that do have health care, as we see the continuing profit driven motives of the healthcare system, even those that do have insurance are finding that it's not adequate to actually access the kind of care that is needed.
You know, so we have people, you know, having to organize, like to remind folks like we've been, we've had a country. Like the only reason some people, not even everybody, but some people have an eight hour work day or have vacation days is because people fought and died for that. Right? And people seem to forget that and they're just like, well, you know, like we work a lot with The Fight for 15 movement, you know, and you know, well, these are just jobs for kids in high school or, you know, it's like, no, like masses of people have to work low wage jobs just to survive and work three jobs. You know, I remember there was a time when I think it was George W. Bush was talking about, you know, a woman was testifying at a presidential kind of debate or something about how she had to work three jobs. And he was like, well, isn't that just American? And it's like, is that a good thing that we should celebrate really, that we have to work three jobs? That none of those are actually even keeping a roof over our children's head right now or putting food on the table. And not to mention that most likely the scheduling of those jobs are so inconsistent that, you know, even being able to get there, like, how are you supposed to be able to take care of your family when you're working three jobs? You know, and so it's just to be able to call that out and say, no, this isn't right, this isn't how it has to be. And I think one of the pieces about the book going back to kind of the ritual side of that is, you know, I think people have a hard, hard time right now. We get hit with a lot of facts and numbers and statistics like in social media and the news.
But we've lost kind of the real people behind those numbers and the stories and the impact that it's having on people's lives. And like that's what this book is about. Like it's, you know, these rituals are things we have to do to be able to sustain ourselves as, as, you know, human beings and as communities. And so, you know, in, through those stories, through those rituals, there's also testimony of actual people and their lives and the wholeness of our lives. Right? And that, you know, we have to be able to, in our organizing work, be able to hold the fullness of our humanity too. We need to have the spaces to call this out, right? To lament it, to whale. We also need the spaces to celebrate the victories and to celebrate the ability to sustain and to, you know, I think the other piece on this, like, you know, just the grueling nature of our society of like the constant we have to be working and like, if we're not, you know, we, it's our own fault that we're poor is also like, where is the joy that we're called to experience, right? Like, and, and people like poor and homeless folks having a space for joy and love and celebration like that, you know, I think that's something we also need to call upon and say like, this is a right, like this is.
And it's something that God wants us to experience. Right? And so, yeah, I think in order to live into that fullness of supporting like who we are as children of God, like, we have to be able to access all of that.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that you're talking about that joy being a right. That's how God has designed us, I think. Oh, there's just, oh, there's just so much there, Sharon. But I'm just thinking of like, like how especially so many of the ways in our society is structured when you're talking, I'm like.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: Work.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: Let's take that example again for a moment and say we want people to be able to find joy in their work.
And doesn't matter what you do, we want people to be able to find joy in their work and in their hobbies and in their family and, you know, all of these things.
But we have situations where people are working three jobs and, you know, everything that you just described, it's like our society is kind of built not around, let's help people find joy in their work. But like this, it's transactional, it's usury, you know, it's what can someone do for me there? And it is like, I don't know, just like so many of the things that I'm like, these are just like basic, basic humanity. Let's just talk about basic humanity for a minute. You know, people being able to find joy in their work. The other one that I have been on my soapbox for a while is health care.
I'm like, healthcare. Like, can we just really look around, open our eyes and say, yes, profit driven, transactional, usury, all of the things. But like, a person should be able to receive the care that the person needs not just to live, but to live healthily.
We can't even. I mean, we can talk about things that are happening right now with Medicaid being, you know, stripped away from people who desperately need it. Even. What you're saying about insurance. My. My husband had a job change recently, and all of our family was covered by the insurance that was subsidized by his employer.
And the. His first priority, like, almost to the point where I had almost never seen him be so determined on something. And so with. With such an urgency was like, healthcare. Like, we have to figure out a way that we get insurance when this insurance ends with this job change.
And it's because of all these overlapping reasons, Right. You've got this tied to employment, so you've got workers rights, you've got health care, you've got poverty, where I'm like, the statistics, bankruptcy. It's happening because people are in medical debt. You know, we're sitting there going, we have a family of six.
We are keenly aware that one kid, one medical crisis, riding his bike, even. It doesn't have to be a terrible diagnosis. It's like a broken limb could lead to everything spiraling out of control financially and all this stuff because of the way our system is set up. And I think that that is another underlying thread of this book is like, almost every topic that you guys tackle in this book, you could say that phrase at the end. It's because of the way our system is set up. None of this is by accident. None of this is just like, oh, I don't know. That's just the way it is. It's like, no, no, no. This is because the system is built this way. The system is set up this way. And we need these rituals to draw attention to the fact that that's not okay and that it doesn't have to be.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: If it was set up this way, it could be changed.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
[00:38:45] Speaker A: Could be altered, could be blown up entirely and start from scratch. Or we could make adjustments to change those things.
One of the questions that you have in the book, there's reflection questions at the end of the sections, and one of them names health care as a basic human right.
Can you talk about maybe the ways that some of the communities that you're involved in talk about health care or how they try to advocate for healthcare being recognized as a basic human right?
[00:39:26] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. And I think there's lots of work that's been done in our network around healthcare. And there's one of the groups that's the nonviolent Medicaid army has been really, you know, looking at the way these Medicaid, you know, cuts are going to impact people and have already impacted people. I think one of the things we've seen with, you know, this big beautiful bill, quote, unquote. Exactly right, is that they're like, oh, well, these aren't going to impact people until two years from now. And the reality is people are already, you know, have, have seen through the lack of Medicaid expansion already as well as, you know, just the continuous. There have already been people being kicked off the rolls of Medicaid, right. Happening. And this is just going to be one more devastating cut to that. And you know, the, the folks that are working on this, you know, continue to just, I mean, it's telling people stories, right? Like whether it's, you know, knowing, you know, a mom from Alabama whose daughter died from cancer because she didn't have health insurance, right?
Or whether it be, you know, just not being able to, like having to fight tooth and nail another member here in New York to get an MRI because she has long term, you know, she was born with complications of like in her spine and needing to follow up with that and needing to access, you know, Medicaid and you know, being denied the basic, you know, scans because of the way insurance companies, you know, are working and whether they will actually certain places will even accept Medicaid in this moment. Right.
And we know at, I think the bigger piece too is like, especially for folks in rural areas that all of these like smaller hospitals and that aren't in like major cities, you know, or even in major cities in different pockets of the city, you know, with the inequalities that happen in cities are really dependent on funds that come through Medicaid. And we see constantly, you know, the hospitals being closed down in areas and then not having any access to, you know, basic, a basic ER, right For emergencies or having to drive, you know, really far to get. And when you're in a life threatening situation, like that's detrimental. Right.
And so, you know, I think it's across the board and to say, you know, this shouldn't be a stretch like our ability to survive and you know, to, to be a, like a healthy person like that, that shouldn't be a question like that should be a basic human right.
And so the fact that we've moved, we've seen even in the last 20 years, like the extreme change shifts that have happened in the medical system and it's my, my partner is actually going through cancer treatments, right? Now, so we've seen a lot of this firsthand.
He's also a veteran. So speaking of the layers of poverty, you know, he grew up on welfare, single mom with five kids. And you know, he ended up going into the military to, you know, basically get out of poverty.
And you know, however many years later now he was diagnosed with cancer that was likely due to his military service.
There was a base that he was on that was designated a Superfund site, which he didn't know until just recently actually that it had been designated while he was there.
And he was exposed to chemicals that are likely linked to his cancer diagnosis.
And he was actually in the hospital, in the VA hospital when the memo was leaked about VA coming, right?
And we can hear, you know, all of, not only for the like people accessing healthcare, but also people working in that industry, right, like all of the like, lower ranking, you know, nurses that hadn't been there that long or nurses aides were extremely fearful that they were going to lose their job the next day. And they were already, you know, like we, it was both wonderful care. Like people were extremely attentive and we knew they were short staffed. Like we had several people that were working a second shift, you know, because they were asked like mandatory overtime there, you know, just weren't enough people there already. And then they're calling for more cuts, you know, to, to the VA system. And so it's, it's, you know, on every level it's not engaged like really thinking about people's humanity. It's only thinking about, you know, the kind of, whether it be with the va, you know, that's, that's a whole nother conversation, you know, and why I think the, the government doesn't like the VA because it is one of our only socialized healthcare, healthcare systems that people can access and actually could be a model for other healthcare systems if it was like fully funded.
But you know, yeah, it's just like all the doctors, all of the nurses, all the patients, like no one is getting treated right in this system. When we put profits and when we put kind of the bottom line of finances over people's health, health. And it's not that, you know, and with that, it's not that there again aren't resources, like we know that like the insurance companies are making, you know, exorbitant amounts of money. It's how are these, how are these resources being designated and what are the priorities? Like that's really the question, like what do we prioritize when we create a system like, are we prioritizing human beings? Are we prioritizing, you know, the, the health and well being of our whole society? Are we just prioritizing? The accumulation of wealth is at the bottom line.
[00:45:00] Speaker A: Gosh. Well, first, I'm so sorry for your partner's diagnosis. That is really, really hard. I think.
Yeah. Many people whose families have been touched by cancer understand, at least to some degree, the depth of the difficulty that that is.
When you were talking, I'm like, what do we prioritize?
Humanity. I hope so.
The other thing that came to my mind is some of the things that these rituals do is encourage us to look at the humanity. Yes. And obviously to stand in solidarity. I just kept thinking, like, how many of these times when something is happening to someone or if someone is living through something that we are quick in our society in general to blame the person.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: And especially with these overlapping things.
Well, this person, this. This is happening to them. And you may say, oh, that's sad. But then, well, they, they didn't. This didn't happen because of A, B and C. But really that just comes down to D. And, you know, that was his own version fault in the first place. Or like, whatever it is, there's not a sense that we are collectively responsible or that collective action is an answer.
It's kind of necessary. You know, it is to me. So much of this comes down to this American individuals and this bootstrap mentality, you know, that you're. That you're talking about. And we might, may have this, oh, well, that is sad or that's unfortunate or something. But really, if that person had made better choices, then, you know, maybe they wouldn't be in the situation they're in.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: You know, it doesn't. It.
[00:46:59] Speaker A: But again, I think it comes down to kind of what we were talking about the beginning of the, of the show is. It's like. But it releases us. It releases us from some of our responsibility. If we can say, oh, that's on him, or, oh, that's on. That's on her, instead of, no, these things ought not be.
And, and together we can say these things ought not be. And together we can say like, there's a reason for this. And it's not because this person chose it. It's because we're all just navigating these broken systems the best that we know how. And there's a lot of booby traps.
[00:47:32] Speaker B: Yes. So it's very hard to climb back out of the hole when you. Oh, it is if you fall.
[00:47:37] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's Absolutely right.
I think I have one other just kind of like, note, I think.
And then I'd like to ask you to maybe share another story from a liturgy or a celebration or otherwise that felt meaningful to you for any of these topics.
But one of the things that you brought out was going back to the earliest disciples, and I, forgive me, I cannot remember which section this was in, but it stood out to me, so I made a note.
But one of the aspects of the early community of the disciples of Jesus, he put something like they were poor people who had basically committed to vow to each other to take care of one another when they died.
Yeah, that felt so incredibly powerful to me. I can think of a couple of other conversations for the. For the podcast that I've done recently, actually, where one was about the current migration system and someone who was. Who was out marking places where migrants had died in the Southwest, trying to give. Didn't bring dignity to their deaths. And another was in the Rwandan genocide woman had a morgue in the center of her hospital to center that death. But each of these situations, and including what you brought out in the disciples in early Jesus movement, of that being really central, which, you know, like, we can look at that. We like to keep death kind of far away. And so we can say that there's a morbidity there to it, but really there is a humanity there to it to recognize that death is imminent for each of us and to bring attention to that and to care for one another in. In death. Like, what can we learn about caring for one another in life, you know, from that? So you may be able to tell exactly where I brought that from. I do not remember. I'm sorry, I don't remember which section it was. But.
[00:49:54] Speaker B: What.
[00:49:54] Speaker A: But can you speak to that a little bit?
[00:49:57] Speaker B: Yeah. I think there might be two different sections that touch on this. But, you know, I think in first say, you know, there is a communion, a few communion rituals actually in the book. But you know that when there's been some work on ancient meals and the early Jesus community, and you know that really, even Jesus's last supper is this story of remembrance, of calling upon, like, that we need to, you know, you need to remember Jesus. But that was a practice that was happening across the Roman Empire because, you know, poor people weren't being memorialized or weren't having the space or were being regarded as disposable. Right. And there was these ancient, like, communities of ritual meals that they were actually using those as a space, space to memorialize. People in their communities that had died and to lift that up and to, you know, be a space to gather. And so, you know, that that wasn't, you know, that that early, the Last Supper is about lifting that up. That we aren't disposable, that we are all valued. Right. That we are called to do this in remembrance of not only me, but one another. Right? That we, we are sacred. Right? Is that lifting that up? And so, you know, another story that, that really comes through strongly in the book is in the story of Potter's Field, a Pottersfield campaign here in New York City with a group called Picture the Homeless that I mentioned earlier.
And because, you know, when one of their members died in Picture the Homeless, they didn't know where his body was taken. He had died on the subway. And they actually didn't check, check to see. Like, they didn't cross reference. He didn't have his ID on him. They didn't, you know, he, he probably had his fingerprints in the system. They didn't do anything to actually see, you know, who this unidentified person was when he died. They just said it didn't matter.
So the organization found out through one of their own members that actually knew what would happen if someone didn't have id and, and, and someone that was also homeless and had, like, fought around this issue for a while that, you know, if you were unclaimed, you were put in what was called a Potter's Field. It's actually called Potter's Field. It's on an island, you know, off of Manhattan.
And they're mass burial graves that people are, you know, there's no markers. They're. They're put in a wooden box and with Jane or John Doe on the box and just put, you know, on top of one another in the ground. And it's actually run by the Department of Corrections. So on top of it, like, if family members do find out that their loved ones were buried there later, before this campaign, you weren't able to actually get to Hart island to visit the remains of your family member because there were inmates from the jail that were actually the ones doing the. So talk about the systems of poverty embedded in this whole practice, right?
And, you know, and so when they found out that their founder, Lewis Higgins, had been buried in Potter's Field, they actually designed a whole campaign to, like, create where you can actually go. And we were having interfaith kind of prayer vigils there to honor those that had been, you know, had died and been buried there.
But we also did a Memorial at Union Theological Seminary with members of Picture the homeless and the, you know, student body at Union and lifted up both Louis Higgins, but also others that had died or that may have been unnamed. How do we honor the death? When a society says you don't matter?
I think Rogers, who's another member, had said, you can see in the way they treat us in death is how they treat us in life, that we are disposable, we are replaceable. And so this kind of reclaiming, this kind of ritual of saying that these lives matter and that we have to honor these lives and to know who these people are. Right. And that we can't just dismiss and have this potter's field. And the potter's field reference actually does go back to that early community. Right. As well. That's where, you know, the calling of Judas and the potter's field in the scripture story. Right. Is the. This. The. It's a burial for the poor.
And so you can see that correlation, you know, from then until now. And I think, again, seeing that the Jesus movement was doing the same thing that we have to do now, right. To lift up and. And claim the humanity, the sacredness, you know, of each. Each person.
Yeah.
[00:54:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Gosh, thank you so much for that.
As we start to wrap our time up together, I want to ask if there is.
Gosh, I imagine this is, you know, like, asking you to. I don't know. For me, it'd be like, pick your favorite dessert. It's like, I can't do it. But, like, is there, at least in this moment, is. Is there a liturgy, a ritual, one of these stories that stands out to you, either maybe for a particular personal or communal reason, or maybe even something that speaks to the times that we're in right now?
There's so much in this book, and I think a lot of the ones that are coming out now are like, hey, people have worked on these books maybe years ago and find that they are particularly timely for what's happening in 2025.
So, you know that. That could be a great.
A great spin on that question as well. But do you have something that really stands out to you right now of, like, this is really meaningful? Before we started recording, you were talking about these rituals and liturgies being ways for people to make meaning of moments. So is there something that stands out to you now?
[00:56:12] Speaker B: One that I was thinking about.
I might just read a little excerpt, if you don't mind.
And I may tend to lifting up the music a little bit just because I often incorporate music and ritual into all the practices that I do. But I do think there's something about music that is able to kind of transcend, you know, our ability to say what we're feeling or to, you know, really be in an experience. And so I will lift up just that throughout the book, there are a lot, a number of songs also incorporated into the rituals and liturgies. And we're actually creating, we're in the process of finalizing a website that will be a companion website to the book where people can go and actually access a lot of the music and other visuals that are connected. So just to kind of more fully bring the book to life as well. Well, and hopefully be able to learn and use the songs that are there as well. But yeah, I think I was, I was thinking about this story that's shared in chapter four, that's called Taking Action Together.
And it was, it was for a vigil for the detained and you know, both thinking about how many people are being detained in this moment.
But it, the story, what I'm about to read speaks to the reality that even, you know, in this moment, the what we're facing seems so huge. And it seems like whatever action we take seems too small sometimes, right? There may be 10 of us, there may be 50 of us, there may be a thousand, but for what we're facing, right, that, that anything seems small. But at the same time, you know, I think, I think what I'm about to share speaks to that. We also are bringing generations of those who have fought before with us every time that we do take action. And the more that we acknowledge if we are taking action, we are going to inspire others to also be taking action together in this moment and knowing that we aren't isolated or alone in this moment. And so this references a friend of mine. Lou Aya, a Bronx based spoken word artist and member of the Peace Poets, was a regular participate in the monthly vigils.
Lou uses music to foster solidarity and resilience in movement spaces. Reflecting on those cold winter vigils, he recalled leaning into the transformative power of music In a city of 8 million here in New York City, with only a few people gathered, building communal power through music might seem like an insurmountable feat.
But as he looked around at the people gathered at the visuals and protests like this, people who took time out of their hectic lives to show up for justice, he came to really appreciate others. He began to recognize the tremendous power that this body of people represented. And he realized that people continue to show up because of all the people who taught them to love and struggle for justice.
He suggested that every time we go to a vigil, we bring along our ancestors, our teachers, our communities, and our comrades.
We have not come here alone.
Lou shared leading the group in the song Never Alone. And I'll just sing the one verse for the song. It says, I have not come here alone.
I carry my people in my bones.
I have not come here alone.
If you listen, you can hear them in my soul.
If you listen, you can hear them in my soul.
[01:00:10] Speaker A: That is so beautiful.
Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing the songs.
Thank you for sharing from the rituals and for reading that excerpt.
Yeah, I'm just so grateful. I'm grateful for the work and I'm grateful for the examples here.
Please let me know when the website comes up and we'll put that.
We'll put that in the show notes. But for now, I just want to say thank you so much for joining me. The the book is called Again, We Pray Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor, edited by Reverend Liz Theo Harris, who couldn't be with us here today, and Sharon Rebar, who has. Yeah, this conversation has really blessed me. So thank you so much for being here.
[01:01:03] Speaker B: Thank you, Alexis. Really great to be on and share and hear your stories as well.
[01:01:09] Speaker A: The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the Show Notes Music and podcast production by Seth Buscetti. Be sure to give us a review on itunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app. You can also Visit us at thatmakestotalsense.sam.
