R2W 2008: Day 2

Day 2 of R2W was about telling our truths.

We started out the day by reading a passage from Luke 4:18-19:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to release the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

We recognized the word "oppressed" from the title of Paulo Friere's book "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" which provided a lot of the inspiration for Represent 2 Witness and R2W's theory of Critical Faith.

Who are the "oppressed"? Women, young people, poor people, LGBT people, immigrants... One participant offered up a deep definition, "The oppressed are those who step outside of the boundaries that others make for them!"

Why does a book like "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" need to exist? "Most of the history books in our high schools were written by NOT oppressed people," another participant offered up. Oppressed people need their own way of teaching that helps people to be free. So, we spent the morning in dialogue with partners about a way in which our people (broadly defined as you would like to define it - by ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class...) were oppressed and how that affects us today. History is not a dead thing. History is not something that happened in the past and died/stopped there - what happened in the past continues to affect us today.

After lunch, we took a trip across the Bay to City of Refuge, a radically inclusive church in San Francisco where you can be all of who you are, whoever you are. The praise band was rockin' on in a packed church hall. The pastor greeted everyone, "Good morning saints" because at City of Refuge, everyone gets respect - just like in R2W. We danced and sang, clapped, stomped, and fanned along with our African American, working class, LGBT brothers and sisters in Christ. Since it was Youth Sunday, they invited Michael (R2W Program Director) and some of the R2W youth to testify from the pulpit:

"I used to think that if I prayed hard enough, the problems of the world would go away, but then I realized I can't just sit here on my ass and wait for change!... In R2W, I learned that it's not just that I lived in the ghetto because my parents lived in the ghetto and my grandparents before them lived in the ghetto and that's just how it is. Because that's not who we are!" said R2W Resource Teacher Luse.

Then, R2W Residential Assistant Victor, rose up and said, "They're always telling our story for us - we get a paragraph in the history textbook. But we can control our own stories -- that's where our power is."

Members of the congregation shouted out, "Teach!" and gave each speaker a standing ovation. As we were ministered to at City of Refuge today, pastors and members of the congregation said that we ministered to them as well:

"You young people have blessed my socks off today!"

"You telling your truths has set me free today."

"Y'all are armed and dangerous! Don't be afraid to do what you are being called to do."

R2W Residential Assistant Chloe summed up the feelings of many other R2W youth well, "It's just so moving - the energy and the love you see here that you rarely see anywhere else."

~ Lauren, R2W Program Associate