Public Acts of Lament and the Covering Up of Suicides

Press

"With a third Palo Alto student apparently committing suicide on the Caltrain tracks in just four months, railroad officials, educators and mental health professionals described the deaths Monday as an extremely rare "cluster." Concerned that other troubled teens would continue to be drawn to the site, transit officials said they were enforcing their policy on removing memorials, worried that the public grieving could inadvertently glorify the deaths and inspire more attempts. In contrast to the flowers and notes that crowded East Meadow Drive after the previous deaths, the only visible sign Monday of the latest tragedy was a police officer on patrol."

Poem

Cluster

fuck.

Sick inside.

Outside: Stanford, white successful people and houses that sell for (cheap at) 1.5 million dollars. No one says hello in my neighborhood, but they eat organic food and drive hybrid cars--hallelujah.

Translation of the Transit Official Memo

"Please don't grieve, beings who value life, because other teens struggling with life might see you valuing life lost and think that's the best way to feel valued. They might see your vigils, your sorrow and flowers, signs of living love and mistake them for a reason to step in front of a train. Instead we think they should see a single police officer patrolling the streets which will inevitably make them feel "protected." Cover up your deaths. Cover up the costs of your emotional repression and deadening individualism that causes the death of adolescents."

Pastoral response

Last time I checked stifling grief is one of the most effective ways to prolong misery and perpetuate violence. Since when do public officials get to dictate our rituals for the dead? Get out their and weep. For those we have lost. For what remains scooping up in the dust. Put flowers on the ground. Hold signs and candles. And if they arrest you, scream out for the sake of all our souls.

Tears From (the mystic portion of) Heaven

What kind of body brings a throb to your pubic bone, aimless lover?

What form of God do you worship, wandering pilgrim?

Where do your people come from, servant of the Earth?

We'd like
names
dates
nation states
genders
and other fictitious handle bars
in order
to grasp you


Somewhere while sipping sweet wine
smoking fat cigars
and swimming naked in structureless desire
Cusa, Rumi & Derrida
cry over our lack of comprehension and imagination

Confession Litany

(On "safety protocol" that closed the sweat lodges at the Native American Cultural Center where I work, the Sotomayor hearings, PANA's closure, health care town halls, and more of my friends being hurt by their "Christian" family members...)

I am sorry that narrow interpretations of Jesus' life and ministry lead my people to sacrifice sacrifice, that instead of seeing Jesus' work as an example to be followed of self-emptying on behalf of the community, some Christians consider Jesus' death a once-and-for-all event that abnegates our neighborly responsibilities. For the ways poor communities, communities of color, the elderly and youth are being sacrificed on the altars of financial melt-down: forgive us. For the ways already-marginalized individuals are being 'put on the spot' or 'pitted against each other' while structures of privilege and domination wash their hands of culpability: forgive us. For those of us who can afford, literally, to stop having conversations about justice and therefore stop listening: forgive us. For not participating in the struggles for social and economic equality because we consider ourselves 'separate' from the suffering of "others": forgive us. For the ways some Christians in the U.S. are currently blocking the advancement of health and health care by promoting fear-mongering and scape-goating: forgive us.

I am sorry that the idolatry of power-over masculinity and historic, contemporary, individual and institutional closeting of same-sex eroticism has produced a religion full of hyper-vigilant homophobia and virulent womyn-hating, that the externalized rhetoric of hate (masking internal undealt with realities of desire) has caused divisions between society, families, individuals and churches.. For the ways bodies are marginalized, condemned, denied and objectified: forgive us. For the way limiting roles get constructed and how those roles stifle personal and relational eros: forgive us. For the way oppressive social structures like slave-model marriage and the silencing of children get employed in order to downplay the vulnerabilities of authentic relationship: forgive us. For the ways true love, relational creativity and sexual freedom get blocked and shamed in the name of "God," for the ways our bible gets used as a weapon, our churches used for exclusion, our leaders used for upkeep of the status quo: forgive us.

May the hurt we've caused be the face of G-d beckoning us out of our dead places. Amen.

Treasured Earthen Vessels

I'm celebrating my graduation from CPE by putting this artwork by Meinrad Craighead into the world through my blog. This image somehow captures how I'm feeling about being "done." Glory!

I get down with this. Hope you do too!