a couple of decent rooms and a bath

Over the past few months of working with Habitat, I have become more aware of my own stereotypes regarding poverty and race than I had dreamt possible, in part because I didn't realize I had them.  I suppose that's a large part of the power of stereotypes, is that we don't realize our part in believing and upholding them.

I think that the last time I saw It's A Wonderful Life was in France.  I was visiting a friend who was studying in Aix-en-Provence, and we went to a Christmas celebration with the little protestant house church group they had gotten involved with.  That same trip, there was a hymnsing in the little cathedral there.  I was asked to videotape, so I stood in one of those little pulpit things on the side, about midway down (there I go, showing my vast understanding of Catholicism), with a videocamera in hand, trying to not be too shaky.

There's something to be said for getting rid of waste, for eliminating societal oppression, and for how super fancy buildings are often included in such ridiculousnes
s.  That said, that admitted, I must protest.  I also love beauty, and cathedrals are beautiful, at least in my experience.  America does not have many cathedrals.  Europe does.  Even small, tiny ones such as this one in Aix-en-Provence, a tiny quaint town surrounded by mountains, are beautiful.

I don't remember all the songs sung, but the finale was Silent Night, elaborated with the slow lighting of pulpits full of candles.  As the dark, arching room became illuminated by the golden flickering, I felt one of the keenest senses of the Presence of the Divine that I had ever had.  I remember the tingle, the awe, even now, so many years from then.  I can close my eyes and see that moment, that candle-lit melodic moment in time.

There's a quote from the movie which struck me recently on a very different chord than four years ago.  Now that I work with the housing aspect of social justice, the movie seems even more relevant.  Now that I find myself constantly thinking about injustice, about a living wage, about mistreating nature, about immigrant abuse, about domestic abuse, about rape culture, about violence at home and abroad-about so many things I can't sometimes focus...I am often desperately trying not to despair over so many things in this world that are despair-worthy, bringing myself back to the beautiful and hopeful, to the good things that are happening and being done.  Now that my mind is in that kind of 50 different places at once, I find that advocacy for the least of these has become a fairly consistent theme for me.

Here's George Bailey to help me finish up.  This quote hangs beside my desk, over a picture called Jesus in the Breadline by Fritz Eichenberg.

"Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about...do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.  Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?"