Advent 2024: Waiting in the Dark

The Birth of Jesus Foretold Luke 1:26-35

²⁶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.” ²⁹ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰ The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. ³¹ And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³² He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. ³³ He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” ³⁴ Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 

Advent is traditionally a time of waiting, as Mary waited for her baby Jesus to be born.  For me, it is also a time of quiet reflection as my energy lessens as the darkness comes earlier in the day, and lasts longer.

This Advent season finds many of us tired, and fearful of the future.  For some of us, it feels as though we are waiting for the other shoe to drop, for more bad news that comes in a daily onslaught.  For those of us who care about our immigrant friends, it is heartbreaking to hear of their fear of being detained and deported, of families breaking apart, of jobs lost and poverty worsening, of children being abandoned and entire communities on high alert.

As President of Farm Worker Ministry Northwest, I serve on the Board of National Farm Worker Ministry.  We educate and organize the faith community and others of moral conscience to advocate and support farm workers as they seek to better their lives.  Sadly, farm workers face a multitude of intersecting evils including poverty wages, unsafe working conditions, racism, climate change exposure to heat and smoke, wage theft, exposure to pesticides, child labor, gender discrimination and sexual harassment, substandard housing—in addition to immigration problems.  For almost 90 years now, farm workers have been left out of the federal protections of the National Labor Relations Act which forbids employers from firing a worker for joining, organizing or supporting a labor union.  Very few farm workers belong to a labor union.  Some work on farms that have been certified through the Fair Food Program or the Equitable Food Initiative which gives farm workers safer and more equitable working conditions.  But the vast majority of farm workers work with no labor law protections.

Most farm workers today are immigrants from Mexico or other parts of Latin America, and at least half are undocumented.  Year after year federal legislation gets introduced to relieve some of the evils that farm workers face, but very little gets done.  And yet, these workers go to the fields and factories each day, doing jobs that no one else wants to do, working hard and toiling invisibly to give us our daily bread—truly essential workers.

We don’t know exactly what the future will bring, but we know that it will hard on our immigrant families.  We are waiting, fearful of the future, and like Mary we wonder “how can this be?”  But we also must remember the angel Gabriel telling Mary that “the Lord is with you.”  This is the time for us to come together in faith and hope and solidarity, letting all in our community know that they are not alone, and that we join them in their struggle.  This advent season is not the time for despair, but the time for preparation for the birth of something new-stronger communities which care about everyone, especially those who toil so hard for so little.

Let us make this Advent season a time of quiet reflection on our faith and our connection to God/Spirit/Love.  Let us pray for strength and guidance to do what we can for our neighbors.  And let us reach out in love and solidarity in ever-widening circles of care, right where we live.                                                                                                                                                             

Breath Of Heaven (Mary's Song)
Songwriters: Amy Grant / Christopher Eaton

I have travelled many moonless nights
Cold and weary with a baby inside
And I wonder what I've done
Holy Father, You have come
And chosen me now to carry Your Son

I am waiting in a silent prayer
I am frightened by the load I bear
In a world as cold as stone
Must I walk this path alone?
Be with me now
Be with me now

Breath of Heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven
Lighten my darkness
Pour over me Your Holiness
For you are Holy
Breath of Heaven

Do You wonder as You watch my face?
If a wiser one should have had my place
But I offer all I am

For the mercy of Your plan
Help me be strong
Help me be
Help me

Breath of Heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven
Lighten my darkness
Pour over me Your Holiness
For You are Holy

Breath of Heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven
Lighten my darkness
Pour over me Your Holiness
For You are Holy

Breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven

Breath Of Heaven (Mary's Song) lyrics © Riverstone Music Inc., Clouseau Music, Be Essential Songs, Bethel Music Publishing, Brian And Jenn Publishing

The Rev. Connie Yost is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister.  She is President of Farm Worker Ministry Northwest, a member organization of National Farm Worker Ministry.  She supports the farm workers at Windmill Mushroom Farm in Sunnyside, Washington who have been trying to unionize with United Farm Workers for nearly three years while experiencing multiple employee firings, unjust work quotas, and management harassment.  Hear their story here.  She lives in Portland, Oregon.

                                                        

Copyright 2024 Constance B. Yost. All rights reserved.

Honoring the Inherent Worth and Dignity of All

George Floyd

We’ve been ordered to stay at home here in Oregon due to COVID-19 for about 10 weeks now.  On the one hand the time has been OK for me.  I’ve preached via video and on zoom, and taught Spiritual Practices for a Pandemic on zoom.  I keep up with my duties as President of Farm Worker Ministry Northwest via email and zoom, as well as my other board member duties.  I was even able to join the farm worker picket line at two fruit companies in the Yakima Valley, Washington.  As much as I might have provided them with support and hope by my presence and donation, they surely provided me with a much needed glimpse of good, hard-working people asking for justice and dignity, clearly in solidarity and community with one another.

What has been hard for me is the feeling that I lack safety and community in the physical spaces that I inhabit here in Portland.  Yesterday I left the house to go to the grocery store, and within the first half-mile from home, no less than three cars, sliding through intersections without stopping, made me slam on the brakes.  The freeways are less congested, but there are no lack of cars that go way over the speed limit, weaving in and out, and/or tailgating.  I don’t know why I thought that in the pandemic, people would be way slowed down and more generous in yielding the right of way.  Not so here in Portland.

And the grocery store experience!  I am 68, almost 69 years old, so once I came out of denial that I was in a “high risk group,” I started being vigilant about wearing a mask and staying 6 feet away.  Impossible to do!  Even during “senior shopping” times people will not stay away from me.  A few weeks ago Safeway put in one-way aisles, which I thought was a great idea, if people would comply.  Pointing out the one-way aisle to some customers coming at me was met by one woman instructing them that they could do whatever they wanted, “she’s just a bitch,” she said. Even the employees disregard the one-way, congregate in the doorway, and pass you within inches, all while the company signs say “Your and our employee’s safety is our top priority.”

I hate the feeling that I have to scan the aisles for safety and have an escape route planned.  I don’t say anything to anyone anymore as I just don’t feel up to the sort of confrontation that might ensue.  Instead, I have found a store that has little traffic and go in there at off times.  That was working good for me until in the 5 minutes that I was in there two employees came by me within 2 feet, one stopping to chat with me!  Really?  I guess I am a bitch!  I don’t want to chat with you up close and personal!

I have to think that the stress of the pandemic has helped ignite the ticking time bomb of police brutality against yet another black person, erupting into the protests and riots we have seen in the last few days.  What do people do when they live day in and day out, year in and year out, with the kind of systemic racism, inequality and poverty that is so intractable in this country?  Add to that the stress of the pandemic, and violence erupts.  I am not saying that violence is OK, but it is understandable. 

It reminds me of Spike Lee’s 1989 film, Do the Right Thing, in which a black man is choked to death by a police officer, and simmering racial tensions erupt on the hottest day of the year.  It is sad that so little has changed in over 30 years.  Since then there have been far too many deaths of black people at the hands of law enforcement.  And the consequence is that we become deadened to the horror of it.

Dreams in the Time of Fear

In 1998, Zapatista women in Amador Hernadez demanded daily that the Mexican military leave the village communal landholdings. (Photo by Tim Russo)

Dreams in the Time of Fear

The sterility of the bourgeois world will end in suicide or a new form of creative participation.  This is the “theme of our times,” in Ortega y Gasset’s phrase; it is the substance of our dreams and the meaning of our acts.

Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake.  But his wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason.  When we emerge, perhaps we will realize that we have been dreaming with our eyes open, and that the dreams of reason are intolerable.  And then, perhaps, we will begin to dream once more with our eyes closed.               --  Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude, 1961

I am probably way out of my depth here, but I am going to plunge ahead, anyway.  After all, I am in Mexico, I am a Zapatista and a kind of Catholic, and despite everything, I am a believer.

Believer in what, I expect you to ask.  Well, not in only reason, certainly.  It has its place, I am sure, in the scientific laboratory.  But as Octavio Paz said almost 60 years ago, this path of reason we have been on since the Enlightenment has not brought us to a better place in terms of our social structure, or happiness, or well-being, or ability to simply live without destroying ourselves and the planet.  That’s a pretty monumental failure in my opinion.

I don’t really care who is to blame, and thank god I am not an academic or a philosopher so I don’t have to say all of this is a certain way which will be convincing to someone who will write articles and books and then maybe we will all come to understand this.

No, that is not my job, thankfully.  I am a simple person, highly educated in a certain way, but I know that I know nothing, really, except what I feel in my heart.  And that’s OK with me.  

One of the joys and afflictions of aging is memory loss.  I can’t always readily call up to mind the word or fact I want.  I’m not really interested in debate though I like to hear others well-thought out arguments.  I detest being lectured to, but enjoy giving my opinion to those who are truly open to listening.  I try to understand what my heart is telling me, and work with my shadow self, all while trying to stay present in the Now.

I am a minister by training and experience and calling.  It is what I do and who I am anymore.  I can’t imagine anything else.  And what I do as a minister is listen; I travel and people tell me things; I work as a chaplain and people tell me things; I do what I can for social justice and people tell me things.  And what they say is that we want a better world for ourselves and our children.  That is universal. 

We want adequate food, water, clothing, housing, education, healthcare and the ability to make a living.  We want to have hope for the future.  We want to worship in our own way, and live free from fear of oppression and bodily harm.  We want our children to live and thrive.  We want to fall in love and have a fiesta or two.  We want to laugh from time to time.  

Is that so much to ask?

It seems that it is, for the many people who struggle in poverty conditions in the United States and elsewhere.

The Story of Bethel New Life

Mary Nelson, President Emeritus of Bethel New Life in Chicago

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way 

Or Never Give Up Just Because We’re Older and Just a Small Group

By the Rev. Connie Yost

April 5, 2017

It began in Denver, in July of 2016, when Southwest Airline computers crashed and my flight home to Portland was cancelled.  An hour and a half wait in line had me rebooked on a flight out the next evening, and an apologetic $200 voucher was issued, good only on a future, Southwest Airline flight.

Never one to turn down a good coupon, discount or voucher, that $200 weighed heavily on me.  Where to go?  Finally, I decided to tour parts of the Midwest I had skipped over (or flown over) in previous trips.  My trip began in Detroit, wound through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, ending in Chicago.

Between booking the trip and taking the trip, I had gotten more involved with the Interfaith Alliance on Poverty in Portland, specifically researching programs that have effectively moved people and communities out of poverty.  I remembered studying the Chicago-based work of Bethel New Life when I was in seminary some years back.  I was in luck – Mary Nelson, one of Bethel’s founders and executive director for many years was still living in the community, and she would be happy to talk with me and show me around.

Mary’s email said that I should take the “L”, Chicago’s elevated subway, green line west to Cicero, where I would transfer to the #54 bus going north 7 stops to Thomas.  Then, it would be a short walk to Bethel at 4950 W. Thomas.  It’s complicated, she said.  No worries, I replied.

I was on the green line headed west when I began to worry.  A man sat down across from me and started trying to put a dollar bill in the pocket of the young man next to him.  The young man looked straight ahead and never said a word while all of this was going on.   When the Pulaski stop came up, the older man told the younger man, “This is your stop.”  Again, the young man looked straight ahead and said nothing.  The next stop was Cicero, and as I got up to get off, both of the men also got up.  Uh oh, I thought, what if they follow me?

In a Dark Time

Reflections on 2017

The year began with me grieving the loss of my friend Jan, who died on November 9, 2016.  I spent New Year’s 2017 at a wonderful retreat at Pendle Hill, a retreat center in the Philadelphia area, made famous by Parker Palmer who lived and worked there for many years.  In the mix of silence and sharing and speaking and listening to the deep longings and intentions on our hearts, I gained some needed strength to face the new year without Jan, and to do what I could to counter the storm the new administration was sure to bring to our country.

I know it has been a hard year for many of us.  We are, as Parker Palmer so aptly said, brokenhearted.  Brokenhearted, and angry, and questioning how and why, but most importantly asking, “What can I do?” I am glad that so many have heeded the call to be the peace and justice makers and keepers that we long for.  It is up to us; we are the change that we long for.  The work is hard because we have to be in it for the long haul; for some of us, change will come after our lifetimes.  It is easy to feel that things are hopeless, that my little contribution will not matter.  But history tells us that change can come, and does come, when people come together across divides, to make life better for all, but especially for those who suffer through poverty, discrimination, illness, and neglect.

I have been fortunate that my ministry has allowed me to make friends with people who suffer.  I know that personal relationships are the key to love and understanding and supporting those who are not “like me.”  This year, I became the co-President of Farm Worker Ministry Northwest, part of the National Farm Worker Ministry.  We organize the faith community to support farmworkers and their labor unions/organizations. 

Farmworkers in this country have always been exploited workers, which the current tactics of Immigration & Customs Enforcement have made much worse.  It is unconscionable that the people we depend on for our food are not only suffering through poor wages and working conditions, but they are also denied legal status and can have their families torn apart.  Because of the new administration and ICE tactics, we have seen a rise in people who now “get it” and can connect their daily sustenance to abuse and exploitation! 

“Did you eat today?” our slogan goes, “Thank a farmworker!”  Better yet, demand justice for them!

In June, there was a major success as the berry pickers at Sakuma Bros. were able to get their first contract!  I went up to celebrate with them in Mt. Vernon, Washington with Debi Covert-Bowlds, my colleague co-President.  The celebration was marred by a death of a girl at the labor camp (circumstances we never found out about), and in early August, the death of a worker at a different berry farm in Washington. 

And so the work continues.  In July, I organized a visit and tour for about 50 people to Woodburn, Oregon, hosted by our Oregon farmworker labor union, PCUN, and their very faithful president, Ramon Ramirez.   In October, I was part of a panel with Ramon, and Leecia Anderson of Western Farmworkers Assn., at my own church, First Unitarian.  In November, I testified at an Oregon OHSA hearing asking that farmworkers be given the same considerations we give to salmon – a 300 foot “no pesticide spray” buffer zone – OHSA feels that 150 feet is sufficient!

I pray that the ending of this year finds you at peace.  At the end of a hard year, I find sanctuary in the silence, and gratitude for the gift of friendship.  The poet Theodore Roethke wrote, “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.”  Who knew at the beginning of the year that sexual abuse would finally come out of the closet?  It gives me the courage, finally, to say, #MeToo.  Our stories matter.  Truth matters.  Solidarity matters.  May it be so.

Copyright 2017 Constance B. Yost. All rights reserved.

In a Dark Time, Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!

A sermon by the Rev. Connie Yost
11/20/16

First, I want to say that I know many of you are concerned about the recent election and what it may mean for the future of our country, our democracy, and our people. I share your anxiety and disbelief. November 9 was especially hard for me because in the midst of what I thought was the impossible happening, a very good friend of mine passed away. So I, too, am reeling from a world seemingly turned upside down and very dark.

My topic for this sermon - inequality - which I had been planning all along, is even more crucial and timely today. I wish I could say that we have some reason for hope that policies with this new administration and Congress will work for the good of all people, especially those in poverty. But I cannot say that I see much chance of that.

What I do hope is that we can turn our disbelief, our outrage, our fear and our anxieties into a renewed commitment to work for justice. This is my prayer and my hope, and I hope that you will join me in this.

What this election has made clear to me is the deep disenfranchisement of working people who have experienced the downward effects of the last decades of our economic policies. In a very sad way it comes as no surprise that someone outside the political system, making promises to restore jobs and communities to some past idyllic time, would appeal to so many.

I can only hope that when it becomes clear that new policies have made things even worse, that more Americans will stand up and fight for justice.

We cannot ignore the fact that a white man who brazenly trumpeted his xenophobic, sexist and racist beliefs won this election. It is not all about our failed economic policies. For some, it was the backlash against eight years of a black man in the Presidency. For some, it was the fear of a woman in the Presidency. And surely it was also the rush of white America to find someone to blame.

On Friendship

Ministerial Meditations

by The Rev. Connie Yost 

March 10, 2016

Jan and Me

On Friendship

My friend Jan recently gave me a birthday card, which perhaps doesn’t sound very remarkable except for two things:  1) it wasn’t my birthday and 2) she thanked me and said “I love you very much.”

I have known Jan for about 40 years, and though I moved away from Seattle where she continued to live, I tried to keep in touch with her when I came back to visit.  In the beginning of our friendship, I wasn’t aware that she had a neurological condition.  But over the years, she became progressively more unable to take care of herself.  For years, she lived in a little rented house near Seward Park.  She enjoyed cooking and gardening and her cat, Baby.  She had help that came in a few times a week.  Then she started to have falls, and surgeries, and a stroke.  On the phone one day she told me that she had had to move from the little house into an adult family home on Beacon Hill.  Though it was hard to give up the independence that she had had, the worst thing was that she couldn’t take Baby with her.  A cat person myself, I grieved for her.

Jan lived in that first adult family home for about 5 years, then was told she was moving one morning.  She never did know why.  The new adult family home was visually unappealing to me, located next to an auto repair shop with a dump of tires visible in the back yard.  But Jan became quite attached to the older woman who cared for her, and she had a large room to herself.  All seemed well for a couple of years until her caregiver went to the hospital for back surgery.  A new, younger couple took over as the caregivers.  Jan thought this was temporary until the older caregiver recovered enough to come back, but as the months went on it became clear that the younger couple was there to stay. 

Dreams Can Come True

 

Plant Dreaming Deep: The Story of

EarthWorks Community Farm

by The Rev. Connie Yost

December, 2006

                  

EarthWorks Class Fall 2006

            In 2002, while in seminary at Claremont School of Theology, I attended a conference on poverty and heard a young man from inner city Boston named Wil Bullock speak about how at age 15 he became employed by The Food Project, where for one whole summer he worked alongside other youth to grow and sell organic vegetables to the community.  Now he was 22 and running The Food Project’s for-profit business venture – marketing salsa made from their farm’s organic tomatoes, peppers and onions.  He said, “The Food Project changed my life.  It gave me – a kid from a struggling, single parent family – the chance to do meaningful work.  It gave me a way to think about the importance of food and community.  Now I work to advocate for the health of our planet and people.”   He said, “Today I am honored to be part of this movement for change.”

            That speech touched me deeply.  It was one of those aha moments when my entrepreneurial passion joined my passion for social change and gardening, and a practical vision for restoring our connection to each other – especially to our youth – and to the earth was born.