Havdalah
Posts
Havdalah #24: Homilies, Homelessness, & How We Win

Havdalah #24: Homilies, Homelessness, & How We Win

29 Tammuz, 5784 / August 3, 2024

White Rose RI
August 03, 2024

"Havdalah" against a backdrop of sparks in the darkness, with a white rose on either side

Dear Neighbors,

These days, I’m leaning with gratitude on the idea of “finding your lane”. There is always everything to be done. I am one me. I can’t do everything, or even most things, but I can find a few things that I can do.

I try to draw on my strengths — getting on the phone is easier for me than for some, so among other things, I call my reps. But if the thought of getting on the phone makes you want to wither and perish, maybe that’s not your lane! And there’s nothing wrong with that. You will find the way of embodying your values that works best for you, and people like me will be so grateful that you’re so good at the things we’re clueless about.

We all need each other.

And our Sidebar and Fasc Watch this week ask us, how will we show up for each other?

See you out on the road, I’ll be waving to you from the next lane.

In solidarity,

Lee

"What's On" against a blue background, with black silhouettes of figures with signs and banners, with a white rose on either side

Vigil and Noise Demo at the Wyatt

When: Monday, August 5, 6:00pm
Where: Outside the Wyatt Detention Facility, 950 High Street, Central Falls, RI 02863
AMOR is holding this gathering to remember the death of Jason Hiu Lui Ng in 2008 due to the Wyatt’s medical neglect, and to call attention to the ongoing medical neglect at the Wyatt Detention Center in solidarity with the families of folks currently detained.
Bring signs, noise makers, and your friends!
Vigil and Noise Demo Info
Some useful protest links:

Volunteers Needed for Free Asylum Clinic

When: Saturday, August 10, 9:00am-5:00pm
Where: Clínica Esperanza / Hope Clinic, 60 Valley Street, Suite 104, Providence, RI 02909
On August 10th in Providence, the Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice (SCIJ) and Olneyville Neighborhood Association (ONA) are holding a free asylum clinic to help people in Rhode Island complete their asylum applications, and they need volunteers! This is RI’s first-ever, large-scale pro se asylum clinic.
Some roles are open to any volunteers, and some roles require specific experience.
Asylum Clinic Volunteer Sign-Up

Retro & Perspective Art Exhibit

When: Saturday, August 10, 2:00pm-3:00pm, and throughout August during library hours
Where: Hoxie Gallery, Westerly Library & Wilcox Park, 44 Broad Street, Westerly, RI 02891
This exhibit will feature a collective of pieces done by local artist Qimin Liu and his son Ethan Liu. Using a variety of media and styles inspired by both Western and Eastern art, the artists’ work reflects on personal and social concerns. The subject matter includes homelessness, racial weariness, and cultural roots.
Retro & Perspective Exhibit Information

Continuing Actions for Palestine

Jewish Voice for Peace Weekly Flyering

When: Every Wednesday, 5:00pm-6:00pm
Where: Providence Train Station, 100 Gaspee Street, Providence, RI 02903
JVP RI invites all to join them in their efforts to spread the word about their work and simple actions people can take to demand an end to the genocide in Palestine. They meet on the Statehouse side of the train station.

Weekly Kaddish

When: Every Sunday, 1:00pm-1:30pm
Where: Michael Van Leesten Pedestrian Bridge, Providence, RI 02903
Jewish Voice for Peace RI and allies will be hosting a weekly gathering on Sundays to recite the Mourners Kaddish and communally grieve the Palestinians murdered by the Israeli military. You need not be Jewish to attend; all are welcome to participate.

Power Half-Hours for Gaza

When: every day, Monday through Friday, 3:00pm EST
Where: online
Jewish Voice for Peace is holding Power Half-Hours for Gaza every day — join us as we channel our fury and sorrow into collective action to stop genocide.
Power Half-Hours for Gaza Registration

Ceasefire Today Toolkit

This toolkit has a variety of links, including call scripts, groups accepting donations, phone banks, petitions, and more.
Ceasefire Today Toolkit

News Coverage

As always, especially when getting news from social media, be aware of who is sharing information and why they’re doing it.
Al Jazeera Coverage of the War on Gaza has continued to be a reliable source.
Mondoweiss has also provided excellent context and deep dive pieces.

"Mutual Aid" on a grey-white gradient, flanked on each side by a loop of interlocking hands, with a white rose on either side

Melting ICE Benefit Concert

When: Friday, August 16, 6:00pm-12:00am
Where: Bodega on Smith, 373 Smith Street, Providence, RI 02908
AMOR’s Community Response Team has been receiving requests for financial support from folks inside the Wyatt Detention Center. They are hosting a benefit concert to raise funds for our community members directly impacted by ICE detention. 100% of funds raised will go directly to the community! There will be local bands, DJ’s, a raffle, art and more!
Tickets are sliding scale and start at $15. For every additional $5 dollars you add to your ticket price, you will receive one raffle ticket that gives you the chance to win some epic prizes. Raffle items include art, tattoo vouchers, gift cards and more – all from local artists and businesses.
Even if you can’t make it, you can still donate to the AMOR Community Legal Fund using the same link as for tickets.
Benefit Concert Tickets and Donations

"Sidebar" on a white background, with a sketch of a trial litigation on the left and a Torah scroll on the right, with a white rose on either side

Katherine (she / her)

There is a certain type of homily that drives me up the fucking wall.

There are a couple variations to it; it generally starts with the priest bemoaning the state of American life today, and how Christianity — sometimes specified to the Catholic Church, sometimes not — is no longer the institution it once was. If it ever was. There are a couple of ways it can unfold from there; some start to fantasize about the persecution they claim Christians face in America. Some lament the post-Christian culture, all the ‘nones’ on the religious surveys. Some wander into polemics about insufficiently pious members of their own congregations, harping again and again about a lack of faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist in lockstep with the most absurdly fixated of the USCCB members, calling for halfhearted correct orientation during services and painless confessions. All encourage everyone listening to indulge in their worst reactionary conservative instincts.

For everyone complaining that the Catholic Church isn’t respected anymore: look at the sexual abuse crisis and go fuck yourselves.

For everyone complaining about the lack of reverence for the Eucharist at Mass: look at the Magdalene Laundries and go fuck yourselves.

For everyone saying that the Church should have a role in government: look at the fact that the Vatican Bank is a haven for money laundering and go fuck yourselves.

Social standing, priestly reverence, political power, it’s all rotted us out. As if that sort of thing matters. As if we are entitled to it. As if Jesus wasn’t nailed to a fucking cross by the state.

It’s the self-indulgence that pisses me off. Well, among many other things. But — look at it, the self-indulgence and the entitlement of it. Self-pity is easy; anger at the other is easier still. Looking at ourselves, and the church, and going “the critics are right” is as hard as pulling teeth. Acting on that realization, looking at all of the things in ourselves, in church, that we’ve done wrong, that we need to change, and then changing them? Eating the crow of our history again and again and saying mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa without caveats, without excuses, and then doing better? That’s so hard. Hard, like pulling out the rotten core of ourselves to spill on the pavement, but we gotta do it, we gotta do it. It’s so much easier to be told everyone else is wrong, easier to go to church, to go to the softball confession and say some prayers, easier to hear in the voice that isn’t quite speaking but you can hear all the same “condemn everyone who doesn’t do these things”.

When was the last time a homily asked something concrete of the congregation? Told them to serve at the food pantry and not just unload expired cans into the bins; told them to volunteer at the homeless shelter; to give money to panhandlers; to visit the people in prison. I’ve never heard one. When was the last time charity hurt, instead of felt mildly inconvenient?

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

When was the last time you went to confession, and told of some time you hurt someone, broke their heart, yelled at them, spread gossip, and instead of giving you a handful of Hail Marys and absolution, the priest told you, what are you doing here? Get up, make amends, make right what you’ve done wrong, that’s your penance.

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

If the whole world seems to be against the Catholic Church — one, no it’s not. Two, even if it was, maybe that means they have a point. If everyone jumps off a bridge, there’s probably something wrong with it. It just takes a thought to break the self-righteousness: our presidents still swear on a Bible, In God We Trust still sprawls across our money, half the Supreme Court is Catholic. This isn’t a country you can say is hostile to religiosity. When there is pushback, it’s to the insularity, the unkindness, the hypocrisy, the cruelty.

Why should anyone listen to what the Rhode Island Catholic Church says when it’s being sued by a nurses’ union over their responsibility in an insolvent pension fund? Where is the Providence Diocese’s voice in the homeless debate in RI? Why is it, in BLM protest after Palestine divestment after union drive, that I’ve never seen a priest, a brother, a nun? Dorothy Day would rant, Francis would weep, Oscar Romero would be ashamed.

Regardless of what you think of the Catholic Church’s teaching on sexual ethics and Humanae Vitae — and for the record, I don’t think much of them, across the board — how can you think that we have any place to stand, looking at a hundred years of abuse and complicity and cruelty? Cause it’s just not us, the laity, that are lazy and self-righteous; the rot is root and branch. It’s the priests that abuse, the nuns that look away, the bishops that conceal, the cardinals that embezzle, the nuncios that cling to power, the popes with blind spots so large you can hide entire bureaucracies in them.

Guilt is only useful insofar as it makes us do better; self-pity, bitterness, and self-righteousness are no use at all. Next time you’re inclined to feel put upon by some slight — real or imagined — take it as a spur. Give money to someone on the street; call Mayor Smiley to provide help for the unhoused; give to a bail fund, to redeem people out of jail. Cut out the rot, as best we can, as much as we can, show the world the green and growing and loving parts of our church, instead of the self-indulgent worst.

Needle Drop: “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love”, Jars of Clay

"Fash Watch" in white ransom note font against a black background, with a hand wielding a burning torch on the right, with a white rose on either side

Mayor Hopkins of Cranston: The Ghost of Conservatisms Past

Last week, Cranston Mayor Kenneth Hopkins attempted to introduce legislation that would criminalize houselessness in the second largest city in the state. Steve Ahlquist’s report on the swift backlash to this can be found below in the round-up of local news. While the breadth and severity of the proposed bill is astonishing, it’s not surprising to anyone who is familiar with its author. It is, in fact, dreadfully in line with his demonstrated character over the past decade or so.

Before he was mayor, Hopkins was a history teacher at Cranston High School East. I had him my sophomore year, and I have more than one personal ax to grind with him.

What I and perhaps other former students remember of Mr. Hopkins are not his lessons nor his curricula (although I do have fond memories of watching The King’s Speech in his class period, and less fond ones of sitting through Doctor Zhivago).

I remember Hopkins spurring students into “debates”, abstract and intellectual to him, but with real consequences for some of my peers. One of the most egregious instances was when he wanted my class to raise their hands to indicate whether they would or would not like to see a mosque constructed at Ground Zero.

“Doesn’t it seem like a slap in the face to the victims?” He had sneered.

I remember him mocking female students as “spare parts”, in reference to the idea that Eve was made from Adam’s rib.

I remember my classmate in Algebra II, a girl I will not name, who was in Hopkins’s other World History section. She was flunking Hopkins’s course because she was thrown out of class nearly every day due to her vocal opposition to his sexist jokes.

I remember a man opposed to the specter of political correctness that impeded his ability to make cruel jokes and thus flaunt his power over the students in his custody. I remember a man who claimed to be a “devil’s advocate” during debates about civil and human rights while behaving rather more like a trial litigator in the vein of Johnny Cochrane.

All this is to say, I am altogether unsurprised that the conservative, bull-headed, emotionally indifferent man who was my World History teacher went on to become a mayor who is just as conservative, bull-headed, and emotionally indifferent. Power obviously does not reform people’s characters, nor does it incentivize an embrace of their better natures. I won’t hide my contempt for my hometown’s choice in leader, nor will I pretend that the choice is unexpected. I grew up with Mayor Fung, after all.

As someone who has formerly been homeless, though, I am grinding my teeth.

Under the mayor’s proposed legislation, were I homeless in my own hometown, I would not be regarded as anything more than unsightly litter.

Think whatever you want, feel what you feel, I am not here to argue that the homeless are human — if you can’t understand that humanity should guarantee you respect, dignity, and the right to be left the fuck alone, I don’t really know how you found this newsletter, to be quite honest with you. Regardless: the houseless are our neighbors. The houseless are members of our community. This is their home.

I did enough time living in Cranston that I have as much claim to the city as any Westie with a string of pearls to clutch over a tent on the sidewalk. I have as much claim to Cranston as Hopkins does. So do all of the houseless people who live in Cranston.

I agree with the gentleman cited in Ahlquist’s article that an aspirational definition of citizenship should include the obligation of respecting one another. I will also point out that Cranston made its feelings on the matter very clear when it repeatedly elected a mayor who does not respect people, and who has never made any bones about that fact. This is who Cranston is. Look hard at yourselves. If you don’t like what you see, then fucking fix it.

The options on the table for mayor of Cranston this cycle are all exceedingly underwhelming, I grant you. I would not endorse any such one. But if the city would like to begin redeeming itself, a good start would be not voting for Kenneth fucking Hopkins again.

Required Listening: Robert Evans on It Could Happen Here

How We Win (July 25, 2024)