Zion Learns to See, Terence Lester and Zion Lester, illustrated by Subi Bosa. IVP Kids (ISBN: 781514006696) 2024.
Summary: Zion goes to work with her father at the community center and learns how those experiencing homelessness matter to God.
Terence Lester leads a community mobilization organization addressing various poverty issues. One Saturday, as he was headed out the door to work, he asked his daughter if she’d like to come with him. She decides this is more interesting than helping with household chores. As they drive to the center, she notices the neighborhood changing. she sees tents on the sidewalks.
Dad stops to get her favorite breakfast sandwich–then orders 50 more! They are for the people on the street around the center. Dad calls them “friends.” He knew their names and introduced each to Zion as she gave them a sandwich.
These happy moments are disturbed when Zion hears a driver curse out a homeless family. She can’t understand why someone would do that. Terence doesn’t know either but says that when you understand that every person matters to God, you begin to see them differently.
They talk about why these people don’t have homes (in the afterword, we learn over a million school children are homeless). As they pass out basic necessities, Zion meets lots of homeless people that day–adults, teens, and young children. They share about God’s love.
Zion decides two things. She wants to go back and also tell others what she saw. And some amazing things happen after that, including this book!
This beautifully told story by the Lesters is accompanied by the illustrations of Subi Bosa. Together, story and art convey the joy of treating people as those who matter to God. But there was one unhappy person in the story– that irate driver who just saw people living on the street. It’s a story that builds compassion and shows how we can matter to those who matter to God. Even when they don’t to society.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
Summary: Parallels the Western disdain for mothers and children with ancient Rome, and what early Christians can teach us.
Nadya Williams decided in 2023 to walk away from a traditional academic career. But it was not, primarily, to freelance, or consult. She walked away to homeschool her children. As a result, she experienced the incredulity of friends and professional colleagues who tried to make sense of her choice. They confirmed her assessment that in a Western, post-Christian world it makes no economic or professional sense to do this. Having children costs a lot of money both directly and indirectly. And the choice of motherhood ahead of professional career has been increasing framed as an inferior, or even oppressive choice, even when freely chosen. Williams argues that her experience reflects a societal devaluation of the personhood of children and mothers and a disdain for maternal bodies.
In the first part of the book, Williams elaborates this argument. She begins with the experience of expectant mothers in modern ob/gyn practices. She describes practices in which the office decor features contraceptive advertising and Botox advertising to remove the after effects of pregnancy on a woman’s body. Williams contrasts it to a midwives practice to which she switched that featured pictures of babies on the wall. [My wife sees a conventional ob/gyn at which pictures of babies adorn the walls, so this must not always be so.]. But she makes the point that one must prevent pregnancy or remove its effects on the body to maintain societal ideals of beauty.
Likewise, if one has children, they are increasingly designed through fertility practices and genetic testing. Then children endure an assembly line education to prepare them to be good and productive citizens. Thus, we deny by objectification and commodification their personhood. Finally, motherhood is denigrated in comparison to being productive creatives by feminist writers.
The second part of the book looks at the parallel devaluation of life in ancient Roman culture and the counter-culture of early Christians. She contends that women were largely considered mere sex objects. The value of children depended on their status and health. Deformed children killed, and others, often girls, left exposed to die. War only underscored the devaluation of women and children, who were raped, killed, or enslaved. She contrasts the ethic of the early church that valued all persons, including the single, childless, mothers, children, and others on the margins. They rescued exposed infants, and cared for the sick abandoned by families during plagues.
What may we learn from the early church in a parallel, though distinct context? In the third part of the book, Williams answers this by appealing to three writers, two ancient, and one contemporary. First she introduces us to the prison journals of Perpetua, who along with an enslaved Christian, Felicity, were martyred. Felicity bore a child shortly before her death, while imprisoned. Perpetua’s discussion of motherhood speaks powerfully to anti-motherhood tracts of modernity.
The second was Augustine, whose City of God speaks of the theological basis for valuing lives amid the dehumanizing sack of Rome. His writing to sustain the Christian community models redemptive writing for our day. He spoke life-giving words into a culture of death. Finally, she calls our attention to Wendell Berry, whose life work has been to connect human dignity both Godward and to the land which sustains us as we seek its flourishing.
Williams concludes with arguing that to be pro-life involves far more than preventing abortions. The diminution of mothers and the commodification of children is a far cry from the human dignity a consistently pro-life stance entails. Of course, this extends across the whole spectrum of human existence. Perhaps the most powerful and counter-cultural witness our communities can engage in is to value mothers and children, as well as other members of the human community.
Williams speaks powerfully to the “we need more babies” contention. This still treats babies as a commodity. Rather, she holds out the ideal of communities who love children.
She models a mother who is creative both in parenting and writing. I do think she needs to address the “Handmaids Tale” fears of women. There is a toxic patriarchy that also “affirms” motherhood at the expense of dehumanizing women. I also know families in which men have forgone careers to raise (if not bear) children. Such men are also denigrated. I’d love to see more said about the dignity of their choices, which equally affirm the worth of children.
I also appreciate the nuance she brings to discussions of education, in which homeschooling as well as public education are part of the assembly line. Each can equally commodify children instead of treating them as image bearers. And each reflects a contest over who controls the assembly line. It often feels to me that we “machine” children to be optimal cogs in our nation’s workforce.
It seems to me that the major challenge is to create a culture of life within our Christian communities that is more compelling than the commodifying culture around us that marginalizes or kills its “non-productives.” I think it means disengaging from the conflicting political narratives of our culture. Neither dignifies life. And I think it means forging communities where we deeply connect across generations and stages of life. Superficial fellowship times over coffee don’t cut it. Nadya Williams identifies a key place where we can begin. We can value our children. We can affirm the choices of moms (or dads) to stay home to raise children. And we can be the village that helps them do it. Yes, this is a costly choice but one Christian communities can embrace. We know loving a child or valuing a mother is costly but this is what God has done.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
Summary: A collection of Pope Benedict XVI’s statements in homilies, papal greetings, letters, and other written documents, pertaining to a theology of human ecology.
Many would consider Pope Francis to be the environmental pope, especially with the issuance of Laudato Si. This volume shows that, at least in this respect, he builds upon the theology and actions of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. Afterall, it was under Benedict that the Vatican went carbon neutral. This collection of the Pope’s writings on the environment in speeches, homilies, greetings to various governmental and international bodies, to youth and workers groups conveys a robust and far reaching ecological theology that offers distinctive contributions to our contemporary discussions.
The collection is divided three sections, and because of the “occasional” nature of these writings, many repeat similar ideas. I will discuss some of the key themes in each section.
Creation and Nature
Benedict begins with the idea of creation as the gift of a rational God, intended to be the Garden of God in which he placed human beings to enjoy and tend. From the beginning the peace and prosperity of human beings and the environment are seen to be integrally and reciprocally connected. And for our present day, we cannot hope to have peace in the world if we fail to protect the creation. Its peace is our peace. The creation was set up so that we might fulfill God’s plan for the flourishing of all his creatures, when we set ourselves up at the center and exploit the environment, we threaten our own existence. The protection of creation is also a matter of justice. Our failure to protect creation often puts at risk the poor and marginalized. Benedict celebrates the importance of everything from the Arctic to the Amazon as well as the fragile beauty of the earth as scene by space, with its vanishingly thin envelope of atmosphere on which our lives depend.
The Environment, Science, and Technology
Building on the idea of creation as the rational work of God, Benedict sees faith, knowledge, and science as in harmony. At the same time, the technological applications of science must be informed by the Church’s theology. Human ecology and environmental ecology must work together. He does not accept the pitting of humans against the natural world. The flourishing of families and societies, including the begetting of children is not at odds with seeking creation’s flourishing. Indeed, it is our task. In our time, this means moderating our consumption, turning to alternate energy sources, and ensuring the equitable access to the earth’s resources for all nations. He decries financial gains at the expense of the workers who make this possible, as well as speculative economies, that in the collapse of 2008, inflicted harm to the lives and livelihoods of the global community, as well as leading to environmental degradation.
Hunger, Poverty, and the Earth’s Resources
A number of the Pope’s messages in this section are to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He urges the adequacy of the earth’s resources to feed the world’s people without compromising biodiversity. He decries policies that denigrate the dignity of agriculture and the rural parts of the world. He upholds the farmer as a model of upholding faith and reason, acting on his knowledge of the laws of nature while trusting in the providence of God. He calls for our solidarity with all of humanity for equitable access to food and the world’s resources. He believes this leads to sustainable development.
Most of the pieces are short, sometimes excerpts of longer documents. That makes this at once a resource for thoughtful Christian reflection on caring for the creation and a resource for those studying the environmental thought and advocacy of Benedict XVI’s papacy. Benedict contributes to the conversation the conviction of the transcendent basis for our use of reason in the care of creation. He affirms the role of humans, not only in environmental degradation but also in remediating these impacts. Human beings are part of God’s plan for the world. As leader of a global church, he speaks to global leaders about their responsibilities to all of humanity, and all living things. He affirms the spiritual values that enable people to renounce excessive consumption and make changes for the sake of both fellow human beings as well as the rest of nature.
I did find relatively few references to global climate change. There are concerns regarding his encouragement of equitable sharing of resources if this only means increased consumption of carbon-based fuels and more greenhouse gas emissions as other nations “catch up.” He seems more focused on land and water resources and assumes that climate will not drastically affect food production. Perhaps because we are further down the road as I write in 2023, we see more clearly the implications of our changing climate. Yet these impacts were not unknown in the years of Benedict’s papacy. Indeed it motivated the Vatican’s move to carbon neutrality. It seems more could have been said.
Yet what the Pope said and advocated was significant and far-reaching both in geographic scope and on the aspects of human existence on which he touched. It is striking how he wove these themes into so many papal messages. It both offers models and raises questions about how well we do this throughout the church. May we do as well.
I recently wrote a post on “the speech of freedom“, which I proposed is the kind of speech that affords the dignity, and seeks the freedom and flourishing of those I am speaking about or with, particularly those with whom I disagree.
Really, when it comes down to it, this is just responsible free speech. Responsible free speech never undermines the dignity and freedom of others, even those we disagree with, to obtain our object. It recognizes that there really is no “us” and “them”, whether we are talking about our town, our nation, or our world. We are in this thing called life together.
I heard a talk at a conference recently that proposed a simple statement that we can utter when confronted with the different that we are tempted to call “them”. It was a very basic example to me of practicing “the speech of freedom.” It was the statement, “tell me more.”
“Tell me more”:
is an invitation to a conversation, not an argument.
is an indication that I want to understand rather than pigeonhole.
requires that I shut up and listen.
is a statement acknowledging the dignity of the other, that their “more” is worth hearing.
Most often when I hear something with which I take issue, or meet someone who I sense is very different I want to:
immediately jump into an argument about why they are wrong.
fit them into a category and be done with them.
tell them more about why I am right.
persuade myself of at least the moral inferiority of the other, that somehow I am more virtuous, or more “something.”
All these things fail the test of the speech of freedom, because to be on the receiving end of such speech neither engenders good will nor extends greater dignity and freedom to the other. I wouldn’t want to be treated that way by another.
“Tell me more” is different. In extending the freedom to another to make themselves understood, I open up rather than shut down speech. It also allows each of us to open our minds to the other and to be curious rather than shutting our minds to the new and different. “Tell me more” gives me the freedom for a whole range of other options than simply being “offended” by difference–I can be intrigued, open, thoughtful, even delighted in the end. “Tell me more” allows me to either be persuaded, or unpersuaded by a different idea. One thing it doesn’t allow me is to be ignorant of why someone else might think that way.
I hope to write more on “the speech of freedom” this year. I believe this is something we desperately need to sustain and enhance a democratic and civil society. I also want to work on using these three words more consistently when I encounter difference:
Sometimes I think that of all the things we try to understand in the world, the understanding of ourselves may be as challenging as anything. Why did I respond in that way to him? Why do I find it so hard to get motivated to work on that assignment? What do I want to be when I grow up? As I approach the end of my sixth decade, I’ve come to conclude that, at least in this life, I’ll never be done with asking these questions.
I’ve been reading Ron Highfield’s God, Freedom and Human Dignity: Embracing a God-Centered Identity in a Me-Centered Culture. In the section I read today, Highfield talked about three levels of knowing. The first is the sensual level, where we learn about ourselves by our responses to sensory experiences–for example, I really like Buckeye Blitz ice cream. What we learn about our likes and dislikes and how we respond to various things can show us quite a bit but he argues can also become boring. The second level he proposes is the interpersonal. We learn quite a bit about ourselves as we relate to other human beings, who help us clarify things about our own identities in relationship to what we see of them. Yet the challenge here is that every person is finite and different from us. He contends for a third level of knowing, which is knowing ourselves in relationship to God.
The contention of this book is that the being of God does not threaten or diminish our sense of our dignity and identity. Many fear that the idea of God’s power or presence diminishes our sense of self-hood. All this, Highfield argues, is based in a “competitive” view of God–kind of like a zero sum game where everything granted to God is a loss to us. Instead, Highfield proposes an eternally self-giving God who gives us existence not because of his need for us but his love for us, to exalt us with him. And, when it comes to self-knowledge, we most deeply find ourselves in the one who is our source, who knows us more deeply than ourselves, who loves us, and who has drawn us to himself in Christ.
This reminds me of the opening to Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion where he writes:
“Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”
Calvin thought these two inextricably bound together, and it seems this author is proposing something similar. One of the things I’m wondering, and it is a serious question, is what an atheist account of self-understanding would look like–would it consist only of Highfield’s first two levels, or is there something else that would be added?
I recently wrote a post on “