Читать книгу Liturgies from Below - UK Edition - Carvalhaes Claudio - Страница 14

It is within our “anathema” and our “blessed be” that we compose tradition. This entails betrayal, a break with that which is harmful, and a rupture in our longtime habits and assumptions. But it also entails moving along with that which is important to our living. This form of living tradition goes beyond texts. The group of pastors, theologians, students, artists, and activists who joined in this project decided to hear firsthand what was meaningful for people living at the margins of the world and to compose a bundle of resources for the rest of the world’s Christians. In this way, this collection of liturgies is more a path, a journey into and from places where people are struggling, rather than a self-enclosed set of prayers.

Only a prayer that has its ear attached to the earth, its eye upon those who suffer, and its hands stretched out in solidarity can help us realize our distance from God and a world in flaming pain. If prayer is about loving God, then prayer is also about building a house for the abandoned, becoming a wall of protection for the vulnerable, and giving our life away for those who are at the brink of disappearance. This building of a common happiness and place of safety for those who are vulnerable is an absolute imperative in our world today. Fascism and white nationalism globally have become a fundamental power effect in our times. The de-negration of the world; of the poor; of brown, yellow, red, and black bodies; as well as of the natural world has become the global political process of necropolitics by and for the sake of white supremacy.

Against that daily threat to the lives of so many, Christians must build expansive practices of compassion and solidarity with those who have been deemed to die. We must realize our deep connections with all from the lower classes, all the poor—in whatever religion or color they come—and expand this solidarity to include animals, rivers, oceans, birds, and the whole earth. Only through that confluence of mutualities and belonging does our prayer become breathing God’s breath in the world.⁶ In that way, prayers become a continuation of Jesus’s prophetic life, expressing a radical commitment with the poor.