Small moments

Walking  is one of favorite parts of the day.  Every walk through my neighborhood or to work makes me appreciate the connectedness I have in this little realm where my life is oriented around a 3 mile locality-- I find friends at the park, have guests from Dorothy's and neighbors over for backyard campfires, am greeted by Jose from his balcony as I walk to work, and know the clerks at Young's and the bakery.  Yesterday,  I  stopped to buy fruit at Mi Rancho Market, an open market on my way to work and there were Palestinian flags over the counter. Later, I saw the clerk and ducked in to say, "Salaam `Alaykum." He was so surprised, "How do you know Arabic!!?"  I told him my sister had studied in Egypt and we talked about Palestine. Now whenever I pass he greets me or waves if I am walking on the other side of the street. Living here reminds me of what the word neighborhoods mean. (Of course, there's always the unwanted side of this hood too, where people stop thinking I'm a prostitute walking to Chinatown. ha.)

The past two weeks we have been watching the Olympics at the day shelter. It is so fun to share the energy of a worldwide event with my Chinatown community-- whether sitting next to an enthusiast or the "I could do that blindfolded with a hand tied behind my back" crowd, it is always amusing. Today two friends S. and J. and I planned Chinatown Olympics and shared outrage over the controversy of Caster Semenya's gender testing (without her consent) and the ruling that high levels of testosterone in female athletes may be disqualifying in the future. How will they defend what testosterone equals female so only "real" women can compete? Ah, gender!
 
The past week I participated in the Alternatives to Violence program-- this usually is usually done inside prisons, but this was a community program. There was such a diverse group of people there-- some who had done time and were on parole, some who worked at other shelters, etc. It was beautiful to hear people's stories and share moments of vulnerability with them, even with my co-workers there is a deeper level of questions that we don't often have time to ask whilst running the day shelter.

Then Caitlin came to visit and she and I met with some restorative justice folks in San Francisco-- mostly Sunny Schwarz, and also got to sit in on a Violent Offenders support group (it's like AA for people who have committed violent crimes and they support each other and talk about their triggers and anger and what they need)-- again it was so beautiful and amazing to see the work towards changing and transformation they are doing and how they are taking responsibility for their actions. If only all prisons would work on these principles. The RSVP (Resolve to Stop Violence Program) requires participants to go to therapy and/or get an education as well as hearing victim statements and becoming accountable for their actions. Something horrible like 90% of the people who are in prison never got their GED!

We visited the women resource center for women re-entering society from prison. (We even got mistaken for recent paroles, that's a first.)  they teach life skills, empowerment, basic education/GED, computer, and yoga classes. (It all made me excited about the sorts of restorative opportunities there are to remind people of their own (and others) humanity and dignity and worth. It's so crazy to see men who have been in prison that we're taught to see as dangerous or evil or something crying and discussing people who loved them and how they hope to give their children more alternatives then they saw. Some of them are third generation incarcarated families... which is terrible-- imagine-- a father in prison who has a son who grows up to go to prison who has a son who grows up... there is a saying from indigenous people that when someone breaks a relationship in a community by  harm or violence the whole community has a responsibility in that. And I think that's true because you can see in these groups that the majority of people in prison grew up as low-income minorities (systems and communities and families are failing them on their way to getting to places where they break laws or use violence, though it does come down to their choices.)

Caitlin asked Sunny and Sunny returned the question, "How do you define accountability?" which led C. and I to a discussion about the loss of a language for sin in our culture (which I'd been thinking about reading the wonderful book  Ellie bought me: Blessings of the Flesh, Sins of the Spirit by Mathew Fox.) To me, sin is not breaking a rule but harming or breaking our relationship to God, ourselves, others, or the earth. It is not the law but the connection that can be sinned against.