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June 19, 2015 · 4:12 am

Please, Keep Your Prayers, We Don’t Need Them!

I hate, I reject your festivals;

I don’t enjoy your joyous assemblies.

If you bring me your entirely burned offerings and gifts of food—

I won’t be pleased;

I won’t even look at your offerings of well-fed animals.

Take away the noise of your songs;

I won’t listen to the melody of your harps.

But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amos 5.21-24

Let me start by saying that I am not saying that prayers are a bad thing. If they help you process the awfulness of recent events and of the systemic extermination of Black individuals from US society, then use prayer. But I want to make something clear: prayers alone are not keeping Black, brown and other minority individuals safe. No matter how much you pray, no matter to whom you pray, no matter how strong your faith is, no matter how powerful your god/goddess/spirit/divine being is, prayers are not working.

Upon hearing the news about the massacre of Black sisters and brothers by a white terrorist at Mother Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, what first came to mind were the words from God that the prophet Amos shares in his book and with which I opened this post. Immediately I knew that many of my friends and colleagues were going to start posting images of candles and words of prayer on their social media platforms. It is always the same pattern: hear the news of a white individual – police, young man, white supremacist, state-sponsored executioners paid by tax dollars… – and immediately there is outrage by allies and people of color alike, followed by posts on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram and prayer vigils.

All of these are fine. Use whatever means you have at your disposal to process the rage, the hurt, the fear and the pain. But again, hear this: NO PRAYER, NO GOD, NO POST is helping save Black, brown and other minority individuals from the systemic purge that we are experiencing.

The prophet Amos states that the God of the people of Israel is disgusted with so much ritual with no action. When prayer is not followed by actions of justice, it becomes hollowed. As I interpret my relationship with God, God depends on us working together to change the world. This is collaboration. And I believe that we are way past time to take action.

Here is what I propose, particularly to my white, Anglo/Euro-American friends and allies: shut up, listen, and act. I don’t care that your best friend is Black. I don’t care that your sons and daughters are adopted from Asian countries. I don’t care that your significant other is Latin@. This systemic purge is not affecting you as a white individual as it is affecting us as people of color. Thank you for your solidarity, but please let be our voices that ones that are heard. Do you want to know what it feels like to be Black in the United States? Ask your friend! Do you want to know what it feels to be a racial minority? Ask your children or your spouse or your best friend or whomever it is that you have used as an excuse to state that you know what we are going through. But don’t pretend that you will ever understand our fear. I am Latino, queer and cisgender. I can only tell you what MY fear is. I cannot speak for my Black siblings or my trans siblings. I cannot speak for my women siblings either. I can only speak of my experience. The only experience that a white person can speak of in the United States is that of privilege (yes, even those who are poor. More on how this plays out here: http://thefeministbreeder.com/explaining-white-privilege-broke-white-person)

There are other things that I would like to share about what can be done instead of prayers to change this situation. This is not a comprehensive list, and I encourage you to post your own ideas and recommendations on the comments below. Just be respectful and civil on your comments. I monitor the comments on my page and will not tolerate racism, xenophobia, LGB-phobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, or any other form of hate speech.

Here are some ideas:

Reach out to people of color in your communities. Be intentional in this reaching out. Form friendships and alliances.
If you are white, recognize your privilege. Recognize that the system in which we currently live was created for you. You might be a fifth generation trailer park kid, but the founding people of this country were only interested in the wellbeing of the white, Anglo establishment. Things have not changed much throughout the years, and your skin color grants you privileges that are still unreachable to the rest of us.
Learn about the history of privilege in the USA. Learn about the slave trade and the uprooting of millions of people from their lands. Learn about the stealing of lands from Indigenous peoples. Learn about the snatching of land from Mexico. Learn about the invasion on Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and Marshall Islands. Learn about the USA’s role in placing blood-thirsty dictators in the rest of America and in the Middle East… Learn the history of your privilege!
When you see racism happening, denounce it! Publicly and loud. Don’t just lift up a prayer for the victim… ACT! We – people of color – are literally taking bullets because we are speaking up on our rights to walk on the streets, use public pools, pray in our sanctuaries… Why are you still so afraid of speaking up? Believe me, nobody is going to take out a gun to shoot YOU for speaking up. Not the police, not the KKK member, not the “unstable young man”.
Use the right language when talking about these events: these are not “mentally unstable young men”; they are white supremacists with a desire to exterminate Black, brown and other minorities. These are not “unrelated events”; these are all part of the systemic extermination of non-white individuals in the USA. Language matters. How we communicate what is happening will counteract the fallacies that the media create around these acts of terror.
To my Latino and Latina siblings: recognize that the violence against Black individuals is just the tip of the iceberg. You and I are marked for systemic extermination too. Additionally, recognize that racism and anti-Blackness exist in our communities.
Let us scream, shout, cry, curse… This is fucking terrifying and we need to express our fears! We might even say “you” when talking to you about the terror that the white majority is inflicting on us. Just take it. We are not “coming for you”, we just need to express the panic we are feeling right now and we are NOT colorblind; we see that you are white.
Related to that, we do not need you to “allow” us to do anything. We are going to do it because we are entitled to do it as human beings, not because a white person grants us permission.
Be present, but don’t take over. Listen. Ask questions. Answer if we ask, not before.
Do not be afraid of engaging your own family or friends in conversations about racial relations and your own privilege as white people. If you are going to be an ally and help change the system, it is not to us – people of color – that you have to be talking to. It is to your grandparents and your aunts; to your white co-workers and nephews and nieces. It is to your next door neighbor and your golf buddies…

I am sure I will come up with more ideas as I continue to process all these events. But in the meantime, we can start with this list. Just keep in mind this: God despises hollow prayers and rituals, but She states: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

A Pastor’s Reflection After-Mother’s Day

Every second Sunday in May in the United States there is the celebration of Mother’s Day. Like every other celebration in the country, this too has been over-commercialized. Stores try to take advantage of the day and sell everything they can; from postcards to clothes to fancy dinners and even cars! “Your mom is so special”, they seem to say, “that you ought to spend all your money on her.”

Of course, the problem with the previous statement is that not all mothers are “special” and not everyone has or had a mother. In fact, Mother’s Day can be a very painful day for many of us. Single mothers have to find ways to provide for their children, seldom with any outside help. Single fathers are not recognized for their maternal instincts. Women who have no kids feel excluded. For other people, their mother was – or is – absent or an abuser. And still others have a difficult relationship with their mothers, like in my case. For these and many other reasons, Mother’s Day can be a painful day.

As Mother’s Day approached this year, I read, once again, the many reasons why some of my colleagues in ministry were not going to observe the day in church. Others expressed their discomfort with the day and how churches should not recognize mothers in any form on this day, and rather call for some other way of recognizing womanhood. Yet others expressed their pain and their dissatisfaction at their own experiences and how much hurt the day brings.

Four years ago, my own mother cut all communications with me, and even before that, after my coming out as queer, my relationship with my mother was difficult. As my sister became more and more conservative in her religious beliefs and as she started to influence my parents’ opinions more and more, our relationship as a family has deteriorated to a point that we are now estranged. I do not know if things will mend in the future; I only know the present. This is why Mother’s Day is also a very painful day for me. It reminds me that there is a void in my life; a void that was previously filled by the nurturing love of the woman who gave birth to me. Yet, as a pastor and now as a minister with no parish but still active in the life of the church, observing Mother’s Day is important to me.

Certainly, going to church on the second Sunday of May is difficult. But there is something more important than the pain I have for having lost my mother to Christian fundamentalism: the importance of celebrating motherhood in all of its fierceness, in all of its variations, in all of its strength, and doing it in a community of faith. Being part of a church means that there will be times when we do not fit in. There are also times when we can’t connect with what is being said from the pulpit or with the theme for the day. There are times when we attend church and come out without having felt any transformation whatsoever – which is supposed to be the point of having gone to worship, after all. Yet, we continue attending (or we complain, whine and find another church of our liking or, as it is more common nowadays, start our own.) If we do continue going to church, is not because every single Sunday there will be something for “me”, but because we are committed to life in community.

Life in community means that at times I have to sacrifice my own personal comfort in order to uplift those who are around me. It means that I am committed to live as part of something that is bigger than I am. It means that I trust that the Spirit works in mysterious ways and that I have no control over what the person next to me needs to hear that day.

This is the main reason I gladly attend worship on Mother’s Day. I especially enjoy the fact that I have, for some time now, belonged to congregations that understand the many facets of motherhood: single mothers, single fathers, people who have been like mothers to others, mothers who have lost children, single people who have given of themselves to others as any mother would have done, first-time mothers who anxiously awaited the arrival of their children – whether by birth or by adoption – and whose first celebration of the day reminds them of their struggle, gay men who have given up on the idea of being parents, gay men who are parents, transgender mothers whose children still address them as “dad” because their love for their children is so big that they are willing to sacrifice their own identity in order to make them feel comfortable… All these are examples of motherhood that I have had the blessing of experiencing in my own ministry.

As pastors, it is a challenge to find a “middle-ground” in which all the people in worship can feel included. The truth is that, at some point or another, someone is going to be left out. What is important to remember is that these celebrations are not about “me”, but about “us.” I believe that the best way to address our own pain of not having a mother with us on Mother’s Day is to firmly and honestly share with our spiritual leader our pain. She or he will hopefully understand (if they don’t, perhaps they are not the most qualified person to shepherd us). Perhaps it is best for us to stay away from worship that day, and honor our own pain by some other means (remember, there is no sin in skipping worship!) Perhaps it is best for us to find a mother figure in our midst and share with them the joy of motherhood in whichever way she or he celebrates it.

This past Sunday when my church celebrated Mother’s Day, I rejoiced in celebrating the many people who have been like mothers to me. I also celebrated the priest’s courage to say that he, too, feels like he has been called to be a mother hen to his parishioners; he too feels the power of motherhood as a parent and as a priest. These words were powerful for me, for it was the first time I had ever heard a heterosexual man acknowledging his motherly instincts. This past Sunday, I also celebrated the other mothers who were present worshiping in the same sacred space I was: the mother whose children run around and smile at us and hug us during the passing of the peace and who make a joyful noise every time we sing; I celebrated the mother whose face and hands are filled with wrinkles after so many years of motherhood, who has stood by the side of her gay son and her divorced daughter; I celebrated the mother whose 268913_10150368732015620_6162879_n daughter is the music she creates for us and with us and who has given her life to fight for equality and justice for all of her children… I celebrated with all the mothers, some women, some men, who brought all of whom they are to church that day and who held me in prayer as I shared with them my hurt.

Finally, I also celebrated the fact that I can count on Mother Mary of Nazareth, who has loved me even when I ignored her for so many years. Singing that final hymn to Mary made me realized how important her figure is in the history of my faith tradition. It also made me realized how much we depend on her; she is our Mother and our Guardian, she is our Companion and our Protector, she is the Guide and the Advocate, she is Madre María, who has never left us… who has suffered the pain of motherhood in all of its manifestation, and yet, continues granting us the strength to go on. Perhaps I Christian fundamentalism took my mother away, but the ancient Christian community to which I now belong, has given me another reason to celebrate Mother’s Day.

Tag Archives: faith

Please, Keep Your Prayers, We Don’t Need Them!

A Pastor’s Reflection After-Mother’s Day

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