Feeding the Five thousand and Community

These days I am staying at the Monastery of St. Clare in Memphis, TN. I share quarters with a friend of mine who is a priest while the sisters of St. Clare live in a separate building on the grounds. Once this place was a thriving community of women devoted to living out a life of simplicity and service. Now , like many religious communities, it has far fewer members while still living the life. It is a good place to reflect on the meaning of community and the ways we might create new structures that would sustain people today in their desire to live community.
A story... there was once a man who gathered thousands of people together and fed them a nourishing meal. It was amazing! All kinds of people... mostly poor though, gathered together and ate and drank, prayed, talked, sang, learned, and were satisfied. Of course this story is the gospel account of the feeding of the five thousand. This story is all about community and has both personal and political implications. Hungry people were fed and organized into groups of fifty. Think about it... What then? Perhaps then they could think about their situation and respond as a group. Perhaps then they would have the strength to say " yes " to building community and " no " to Empire. There was a lot going on on that hillside.
Fast forward about twenty centuries... on a hillside in the region of Burgundy in France and imagine yourself with several thousand people eating , drinking, talking , singing, learning, praying, and being satisfied. This is the community called Taize. The community itself is a Christian monastic community consisting of about 100 brothers who welcome people by the thousands .For the past 60 years or so this community has tried to live out a life of simplicity and service rooted in the Christian tradition.
Each day they gather to share a common life. Each member of the community is vowed to simplicity, celibacy, and a community of goods where everything is shared. Each day their songs and prayers offer themselves and the world into God's loving care and guidance. In the trusting of faith they continue beginning each day again and again.
What might this community have say to us in the 21st century? Is a community like this something that the people in the United States would benefit from? In what ways?

More to come...

Peace,
Stefan Andre

The Question of Community...

More and more I hear people wondering about the possibilities of community. Community - defined as the intentional gathering of people to sustain one another over time in ways social, economical, spiritual, political. The more I reflect on matters in this country as we move further into the ways of Empire it seems clear that forming community is a good antedote, and an urgent medicine to the ills of Imperialism. As our American government pours more and more funds into the military-industrial complex less and less monies are available for health care, education, social programs for the poor, roads, bridges etc... How do we respond to this? One very practical way is indeed community. There are many ways to form community and many creative possibilities. In the next few entries I will be reflecting on these many ways and sharing specific stories and examples of courageous people who are responding. In addition I will lift up certain Gospel stories and attempt to demonstrate how Jesus calls us to a kind of community that not only nourishes human beings but also challenges powers and structures that keep people poor.
I invite your thoughts.

Peace,
Stefan Andre

April 4, 1968 Memphis TN

Today, April 4 is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King . Here in Memphis where the murder took place many people continue to feel the grief , the sadness, and the anger of that day. A phone call from a good friend this morning made this very clear to me. " I have got to do something today", she said. " I can't explain what it is like to have experienced that day 40 years ago here in Memphis". Her voice was trembling , full of emotion and I felt for the first time the pain of someone who lived through April 4, 1968 in Memphis, TN.
At this moment I am sitting in a little coffee shop in a poor neighborhood in Memphis. The Caritas Village is a new social justice oriented place where rich and poor eat together and share conversation. Across the table from me is Randy, an African American friend who works with Pax Christi on matters of racial reconciliation. Inbetween e-mails on our respective laptops we enjoy conversation. We speak honestly , fearlessly, like brothers. Memphis... a place of suffering and pain...a place of healing and reconciliation.

Jesus on the Steps of the Church

Remember the story of Jesus when he washed the dirty feet of his friends? This past week a friend of mine from California sent me a message where that story was retold and its implications unraveled. I read it and promptly ignored the meaning of it for myself. Here's the story...
Today as I was walking out of a church where we just finished another rehearsal for the new CD a man walked in to the church. He seemed a bit disoriented. He sat down and said he was waiting for the Pastor of the church to come because the Pastor had promised him a sandwich. SO , he was hungry too. As I looked at him more closely I'd say he might have been homeless. I explained to him that I needed to lock up the building and that he would have to wait outside on the church steps. He kindly obliged and sat on the steps outside. It started to rain. I locked up and said goodbye to the man and got in the car and drove off, trying not to look at the man sitting on the church steps waiting in the rain for a sandwich. I was in a hurry.
Only later did I realize what had just happened. I hope next time Jesus shows up and asks for a sandwich I will say yes. Washing feet is what Jesus calls us to do. It takes many forms...

In the name of the Man on the Steps of the Church,

Stefan Andre

Sing a New Song!

This past weekend we gathered at St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Memphis to begin to record music for a new CD of Celtic music. We were thirty singers, a harpist, a guitarist, two video cam recorders rolling and two very competent recording engineers from Ardent Records. Words like " exciting, exhilarating, exhausting" come to mind. Two very long days of " let's do it again". It was a lovely gathering of people from various faith communities around the city and two very fine soloists - one from California and one from New York City. After these first two recording sessions we'll go into the studio to add other instruments and do the necessary editing. After that we'll begin to rehearse more music including new songs and chants. It is a long process and a very good process indeed.
As we enter the second half of this work I want to extend my sincere thanks to all who are involved in this creative work. Singing a new song with you is an honor and a delight!
And to those who would like to join ...you are most welcome!

Peace,
Stefan Andre

In the Face of Horror...Murder in Memphis

Dear Friends,

How to respond in the face of the horror of murder? Here in Memphis , on Lester street, in the neighborhood of Binghampton, we have witnessed the unthinkable . A family was murdered and mutilated -four adults and two children. Three other children in the family are in serious condition. The reality of this horror is slowly seeping into our stunned consciousness. It is the unthinkable. The unsayable... I hesitated to even mention this here but it seemed to me that to speak of it was more healing than to not speak of it.
It seems to many here in the city that the level of violence, anger, and rage is rising . Over the past few years more and more shootings, killings, expressions of anger and rage. What is happening? Why? How to understand this? How to respond? In the spirit of compassion, courage, and hope may we reflect together on these and other important questions.

First, it is clear that as a community we are grieving. The grief is very real...very deep. At times it feels overwhelming. How to feel this grief and how to express this grief is our human task. Our media reports all kinds of things in rapid succession giving us precious little time to respond as feeling beings. But to be human is to feel, and to feel deeply. And so we grieve. We allow oursleves to experience the pain of loss and suffering. Collectively we enter the wound. And we support each other as we do so. At the same time we offer ourselves to those who are living through this horror. We especially offer our expressions of practical loving to those little children who remain alive and in serious condition in hospital. Memphis is responding in many ways to help medically, financially, and in the emotional and physical healing of the people directly involved.
One question: Can it be said that Memphis is a place of relatively high anger, rage and violence? Many would say yes to that question. Many point to the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 in Memphis and the ongoing culture of poverty here in Memphis as key elements in a peculiar legacy of violence that shapes the general climate of the city and seeps into our everyday interactions. At the same time one police report indicates that the violent crime rate in Memphis has declined by 18% over the past year. Perhaps both are true.
One thing is clear: we must do all in our power to learn non-violent ways of being. We must pray and work toward being more and more non-violent in our many relationships. And when we are confronted with violence we must learn creative and courageous ways to respond.
As an example one report says that every time a neighborhood holds a block party the level of violence in that neighborhood goes down. Something to ponder...
May it be so.

In Memphis...In Grief...In Hope...
Stefan Andre

Breathless...at 30,000 Feet!

Oh, to be a painter or a poet! Moments filled with exquisite sights that take the breath away and stir the heart! Imagine... flying thirty thousand feet looking out the tiny window of a Delta Express Jet onto an infinite expanse of unbelievable colors, shapes, and textures of the California coastline. And God said, " Let there be Beauty." It seemed as though I had never seen such a sight. As the sun was setting I was transfixed. Before the magnificence of the sky's display there lay the humble, and eloquent cities offering their own visual splendor - strings of glistening, golden-blue pearls lovingly laid across a darkened earthly body. Above her -an adoring sky covered with shifting gray-black phantom clouds hiding slim streaks of the palist blue. And in the center and farthest side of it all, everything came together in a blazing artistic horizon of every possible hue of intense fire and flame where boundaries of land and sea and sky are joyously blurred. On and on , for mile after mile, I gazed absorbed, lost in Divinity's Dance.
Finally, I looked away ... and breathed.

Deo Gratias,
Stefan Andre