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13/04/2018

This week, singer / songwriter Frank O'Hagan writes our new blog and reflects on his musical influences and their connection to Dr Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement.

One of the highlights of my career as a singer songwriter was in July 2014 when I was invited to support Mavis Staples at the ABC 02 Glasgow. I had been an admirer of the Staple Singers and the father of the group, Roebuck "Pops" Staples for over fifty years since the 1960s. Pops (December 28, 1914 – December 19, 2000) was an American Gospel and R&B musician, a pivotal figure in gospel in the 1960s and 1970s and patriarch and member of singing group, the Staple Singers, which included his son Pervis and daughters Mavis, Yvonne, and Cleotha. For me to meet Mavis Staples was an honour and a privilege that I had not expected.

I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with Mavis Staples in the green room after the concert and it was an experience I will never forget. She was aware of my interest in her father and his involvement with the civil rights movement and we spoke about Rosa Parks whose actions led to the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1955 – a turning point in the history of the plight of black Americans. I was simultaneously elated and humbled when Mavis Staples made a positive comment about my song describing the event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKRbBWuPpxQ.

Mavis recalled that, after hearing Martin Luther King preaching in Montgomery Alabama in 1963, her father wanted to sing what Rev. King was preaching about and after a meeting with King later in 1963, Pops began writing freedom songs in support of the American civil rights movement.

It is no accident or coincidence that Pops Staples and Martin Luther King sang from the same hymn sheet regarding social justice. Both men were steeped in gospel values, King from his ministry as a Baptist preacher and Pop Staples from his gospel singing tradition and this was inextricably linked to their shared values concerning social justice and human dignity.

In King’s Sermon at Temple Israel of Hollywood delivered 26 February 1965 Rev. King, Jr. focused on the question “Who are the least of these? ” (St. Matthew 25). I used this quote from St. Matthew in a song entitled ‘What did we ever learn from history?’ which refers to the rhetoric of Rev. King. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z49ZIjzgY7Q

In this tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, may I conclude by quoting a section of that speech and sermon, which related so closely to today’s issues of justice and peace:

“Who are the least of these? The least of these are those who still find themselves smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in an affluent society. Who are the least of these? They are the thousands of individuals who see life as a long and desolate corridor with no exit sign. Who are the least of these? They are the little boys and little girls who grow up with clouds of inferiority floating in their little mental skies because they know that they are caught in conditions of economic deprivation. Who are the least of these? They are the individuals who are caught in the fatigue of despair. And somehow if we are to be a great nation, we must be concerned about the least of these, our brothers.

“And we’ve been in the mountain of indifference too long and ultimately we must be concerned about the least of these; we must be concerned about the poverty-stricken because our destinies are tied together. And somehow in the final analysis, as long as there is poverty in the world, nobody can be totally rich.”

06/04/2018

How We Can Come Together For Peace

Ross Ahlfeld of Glasgow Catholic Worker writes this week's blog and reflects on his hopes for the new Pax Christi Scotland initiative.

I was delighted to learn recently, that the good folks at Justice and Peace Scotland have decided to nurture and develop the implementation of a Pax Christi group for Scotland. We Catholic Workers in Scotland, very much welcome this initiative. We also look forward to benefiting from Justice and Peace Scotland’s efforts to disseminate Pax Christi’s unique vision for reconciliation to the wider Scottish justice and peace network. Indeed, the practical application of Pax Chrisiti’s excellent resources on prayer and nonviolence to our specific Scottish context is something we should all be excited about.

Yet, you may well ask, in what specific way will a Scottish Pax Christi impact on Scotland’s Justice and Peace movement?

Perhaps one small example might be our annual Good Friday Stations of the Cross procession through the streets of Glasgow. This year, Glasgow Catholic Worker used Pax Christi’s 'Follow Me - The Way of the Cross' booklet. This wonderful little booklet is a brilliant resource for groups and communities, offering prayers and reflections taken from the writings of Blessed Franz Jägerstätter.

As we moved off from the Cenotaph at George Square, we reflected on the misery of war and the legacy of our city’s shameful involvement in the slave trade. We then stopped at the ‘Sleeping Jesus’ statue and thought on our homeless friends who come to our soup kitchen every Friday night. Then, at the ‘Hielanman's Umbrella’ we prayed for an end to pollution and poverty and at various other stops on the way down to the banks of the Clyde.

Finally, we reflected on refugees and asylum before our last station and concluding prayer at St Andrew’s Cathedral. At each station someone would say a few short words using the text supplied by Pax Christi with reflections by Blessed Franz Jägerstätter.

And so, maybe it would be helpful for us to think of the aforementioned application of Pax Christi’s charism to a Glasgow setting, as offering a tantalising example of how we might build a uniquely Scottish Pax Christi identity within our own culture.

Finally, all around the world we see the forces of destruction and war gathering and growing like a shadow across the land. As such, peacemakers are urgently required to get to work: we cannot wait until it’s too late. To do this work, we require an inclusive and diverse peace movement just as we seek broad and inclusive Church and society and a Pax Christi Scotland will certainly help in this regard. To quote the Pax Christi’s ‘Follow Me’ booklet – ‘Know that peacemaking is as at least as hard as making war! Remind us, Lord, that your peace is much more than the absence of war and conflict.’

30/03/2018

The Green Hotel

This week in our blog, Alex Holmes updates us on his latest visit to Calais. Alex volunteers regularly at the Maria Skobtsova Catholic Worker House in Calais who do what they can to help destitute refugees in the area. This reflection on the ongoing situation in Calais for refugees makes for some difficult reading.

Mid-morning. There is little to say or do except shake hands and say you are welcome and would you like tea. Three young Eritreans from the Green Hotel. An occasional word is said but mainly the three sit silently around the table in the Calais Catholic Worker house. Gebre, sitting between his two friends, has just learned his mother has died. Deaths and sadness roll into the leaden silence. A fifteen year old Afghan boy, Abdullah, has been killed on the motorway trying to get to the UK and join his brother. Days later, Biniam, an Eritrean name meaning “Lucky Son”, met the same tragic fate.

Midday. The thin spread of pines and winter-bare trees of the Green Hotel offer minimal protection from the horizontal rain squalling relentlessly from the south-west. A huddle of young Eritreans are nursing a fire into life. They have firelighters, dry pine needles and a quantity of firewood, sawn up pallets, delivered by one of the volunteer associations working with refugees in Calais. A boy emerges from sleeping under an igloo of sleeping bags and plastic. A huge smile on his face, he says something and has everyone laughing. His plastic igloo has kept him dry. He gratefully accepts hot tea which he sweetens with two heaped dessert spoons of sugar. Away from the fire, the sound of a hammer driving in nails. Two guys are making a krar, a traditional five-stringed musical instrument. Later someone appears with a bicycle: the brake cables will be the strings.

Towards midday, people start to filter towards the “Church” for Sunday worship. “The Church”, a room-sized area bounded by a low wooden wall, once, perhaps, a safe play space for children, has no protection from the driving rain. The diakon (Eritrean Orthodox deacon) is struggling to light a candle. Others gather round him to provide shelter but the elements defeat them. We sit waiting on the peripheral wooden wall. Called to prayer by the daikon on the dot of midday, we form into standing rows and worship begins. Beneath the shrill whine of the wind and the flapping of the thin plastic ponchos worn by some of the worshippers, and the sound of the traffic on Autoroute 216, there is deep focus amongst the worshippers and a profound stillness. An hour into the worship, the daikon goes through an elaborate ritual of blessing water in a plastic bottle and then walks along the rows of worshippers sprinkling each of us with the holy water. We end prostrate on our knees, in deep reverential silence, our foreheads pressed to the sodden ground.

Mid-afternoon, the doorbell rings once again. Three guys and a young woman stand on the pavement outside the front door. I know them from the Green Hotel. “Charge, charge” says one of them. They need to charge their phones. Jamila, the young woman, has been tear gassed by the CRS. She asks for a shower. Another of the guys points to his head: “Panadol?” he asks. His head aches badly. He tells me he is so tired. I fetch him two paracetemol. Within moments, his head on his arms on the table, he’s asleep, exhausted. His friends, quietly sipping their tea, stare silently at the screens of their charging phones. Safety and respite for now; later, they will return to the raw cold and sleeplessness of the Green Hotel. Before they leave, one of them, Dawit, shows me what he has written: “Life is wrong, Life is walking. I hope, good always in my heart. Seven times down, number eight up. Life is a struggle, I will be successful. I pray to God to save me. I will win as God is with me. At last my life will be peaceful.”

*The Green Hotel is a sparsely wooded area on the fringes of Calais, home for some 100 Eritrean refugees hoping to get to the UK.

** https://catholicworkerfrance.wordpress.com/about/

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