The Begging Bowl

Buddhist monks, in practicing their call to holiness, rely upon the alms of the lay faithful to provide them with food, clothes, and other needs. Often, these alms come in exchange for spiritual services the monks perform for the laity such as weddings and funerals. The posture a monk observes when receiving alms is holding the empty bowl in hand so that the almsgiver may place the alms in the bowl. However, when a monk turns the begging bowl upside down, rendering the possibility of giving alms impossible, the monk is withdrawing consent from the the spiritual practice of the community.

In Burma, the upside down bowl became a powerful symbolic action in response to the military junta's repression of the pro-democracy movement. In a devoutly Buddhist country, the withdrawal of the monk's begging bowl represents the denunciation of the systemic violence and oppression of the country's military leaders.

27 March 2008

Letter to Cardinal George

There is a unique opportunity here for Cardinal George, the Archdiocese of Chicago, and the Roman Catholic Church to embark on a journey of peacemaking and forgiveness. One does not have to agree with or condone one's actions as a mandate for forgiveness. Perhaps Cardinal George could lend some valuable wisdom to the six individuals trying to resist war. I cannot help but think of Jesus's instructions to his disciples on the nature of forgiveness and the striking parallels it has to the events of Easter Sunday:

"If your brother or sister sins against you, go and tell them their fault, between you and them alone. If they listen to you, you have gained a brother or sister. But if they do not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If they refuse to listen to them, tell it to the Church; and if he refuses to listen even to the Church, let them be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two or three of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother or sister sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." (Matthew 18:15-22)

Are these "Holy Name 6," as these six individuals have come to be known, the ones who have sinned and in need of a brother or sister coming to them in reconciliation? Or do these six see themselves as coming to the Church, to tell the Church of its failure to be the peacemakers Jesus calls us to? Drawing from the exegesis of Stanley Hauerwas and his assertion that the Church is to be a community of both peacemakers and forgiveness, we see "[t]hat the Church is such a community of truthful peace depends on its being a community of the forgiven", there are pieces of truth from both perspectives.

Lead us, Cardinal George, in being a community of peacemakers, unequivocally calling for an end to the war in Iraq and engage in a process of reconciliation that seeks not to continue tearing apart a Church wounded and divided by Easter Sunday's events, but to restore us to community of God's forgiven that practices forgiveness.
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