Violence is something that a lot of people claim to understand; there are many anthropological and sociological studies about its causes. But, the truth of the matter is that violence is a mystery that comes with being human. I can’t say that I actually understand how violence works. What I can say, is that I am in search of a better understanding of violence in order to also understand peacemaking and conflict resolution. In most of the communities where we work, violence is a constant. What is interesting to me is the result of the violence I see: Internal violence usually ends in suicide and external violence usually ends in murder.

One sunny afternoon in 2005, my friend Brady (who is from Knoxville, TN) and I were hanging out with Clemente, Kevin, and other kids from a slum in zone 3, Guatemala City. Most of them teenagers between the ages of 13 and 19 years old, with the exception of five-year-old Rigo and his seven-year-old brother. Rigo and his brother were playing with marbles on the floor. Chepe and I were talking with the kids, cracking some jokes and having a good time laughing at the “gringo” with the funny accent. For some reason, one of the two brothers lost his marbles and wanted the other one to give him his. I assume Rigo was the one who had the marbles, but I do not know that for sure. Out of nowhere the atmosphere filled with violence and the next thing I saw was a fight between the two little kids.

I have seen kids fighting for toys before, but this time it was just vicious. Rigo’s brother was on top, with his fists closed, beating Rigo down. I do not even know if I have the words to describe the scene, but the fight was brutal. The guys we were hanging out with were fueling the fight, cheering and yelling “Come on! Come on! Harder! Harder!” Brady and I could not intervene. We did not know what to do. I was really afraid the little kids were going to hurt themselves for real. I did not know how to react and stop the fight. Somehow, Rigo made it out of the beat-down and saw his mom walking down the street. Dropping his marbles on the floor he ran as fast as he could to embrace his mom’s legs. He was looking for protection. For a moment I thought, thank God she just showed up, now I do not have to stop the fight! Amazingly, when Rigo hugged his mom’s legs, instead of finding care, security, and love he found a kick right into his belly and an angry voice yelling, “Don’t be such a pussy! Go fight your brother like a man! That is how you learn dumb ass!” I could not believe what my eyes were witnessing. It felt like being right in the middle of an intense Flannery O’Connor story.

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In the photo he carries her
As blood drips from her severed leg
Shattered by shrapnel
Extraordinary courage
Reads the caption and the Boston mayor
Says we are fearless
In the face of evil but in both
Of their eyes I see fear
I think this new day my son of the moments and
Years you have been your own only
Hero carrying your shattered self
In both of your eyes the fierce fearful
Resolve to carry on
From calamity
Both of your selves
Born into blood
Into the many selves you would need
Not only to carry but
Console and cajole and conjure and cling
The fear now
Held by another
One
With the fierce extraordinary courage to
Be

Scott Dewey is proud adoptive Dad of Crăciun Lingurar Dewey. Eighteen years ago today, Crăciun was born into a Roma (Gypsy) village in Romania. As a plaque in the Dewey home says, “God danced the day you were born.”

As a kid I ran from brokenness. Whenever a fight broke out at school while some excitedly gravitated toward it I’d subtely turn tail and literally walk away in the opposite direction. I remember doing this often. Whenever I found myself in proximity to deep hurt, sickness, or wreckage my sensitive psyche wanted nothing to do with it so in my fear I’d flee.

The front yard acts as dinner room and homework lounge after 2pm.  The first and second grade classrooms become dorms after 7pm.  Precious Moments is the most space-efficient school I have visited in Guatemala. There is always something going on; people in the neighborhood know the school and the family running it well because of their enthusiasm, energy and faith. And their marching band.  That was where I met Danilo, playing the drums in addition to running around, coloring, doing his homework and goofing around with the other kids after school. A teenager acting like a young boy. Maybe he was trying to make up for time lost to a hard life.

Martha has a sweet heart and spirit. On a normal day she is a wife, a mom, a cook,  a counselor, a friend, a salesperson, a devoted Christian AND the school director at Precious Moments (that also includes an after-school program and foster home.)   She is also part of the CTM network in Guatemala City.   She has hosted interns, vision trips and local leaders in her ministry, and melted our hearts every time with her incredible life and devotion to the Lord, and the kids in this community in zone 13.

Danilo went to live at Precious Moments after his mom couldn’t provide for him anymore and because of the danger of the zone where they lived.  Martha took him in as her own child and raised him for almost 10 years. His mom stayed in the picture, but Martha and her family became a new concept of “family” for him.

So I went pale when I first read the short message that Danilo had been shot and killed.  I couldn’t believe it.  No way… Not him… Retaliation for something that his cousin did… Refusing to join a gang… The versions of the shooting were confusing and often incomplete, but he had died in front of the school, in the middle of the day in front of friends and family. As hard as it is, this type of death has become a new “normal” for young men that live in hard places.

After a few weeks of mourning and trying to make sense of this tragic loss, our staff suggested the Moment of Blessing Liturgy as part of our commitment to suffer alongside our friends and to join them in the midst of their pain.  I showed up for the reading and a bunch of young kids jumped around me chanting “Miss Liz! Miss Liz!”.  “Uh oh…”  – I thought to myself. “Who is going to stay with the kids while we have the liturgy?”  I was trying to come up with ideas when Martha showed up.  She instructed the kids to make a circle with chairs and seconds later we had 15 kids sitting around and paying attention. These children were going to be our Moment of Blessing participants! Five adults joined shortly after.

I wasn’t sure how to proceed.  The Moment of Blessing talks about death, about tragedy, about justice… words that are hard for adults to process, and even more for kids.  But they paid attention.  They followed the reading with their little fingers.  Their eyes opened wide when I read Danilo’s name on the page.  They started coloring and making hearts and little stars around his name on their copies of the blessing.  Talk about a precious moment.   That was the Moment of Blessing for them – a way of learning and praying in the midst of death.  A little heart by his name, a smiley sheep next to Psalm 23. They remembered a life lived with love and the Scripture reminded them not to fear in the face of the valley of death. The drawing of their brother, their friend, their teacher, connected with words and prayers of hope for a difference in their street, in their neighborhood and their lives.

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I grew up with a sister who was 3 years 4 months and 11 days older than me. When I was a boy there were two things I wanted more than anything else. One was to be an elephant. And the other was to be older than my sister. Maybe the two desires were really the same desire. It seemed in everything that mattered, like getting extra dessert and staying up late at weekends and becoming streetwise at primary school, I was always second. And there’s only so much coming second a man can take – especially a 7-year-old man.

What is it about siblings? We can’t live with them; we can’t live without them. If someone attacks them we’re first to step in, if they’re sick we can’t sleep for worry; but leave us alone in a room with them and in no time we find ourselves turning from wallflowers into fireworks. I once had Christmas dinner with a friend who had his 93-year-old and 91-year-old great aunts and his 89-year-old great uncle join us for the festive occasion. The great uncle said “Pass the roast potatoes, would you” – and proceeded to help himself to a generous portion. “Stop it – put those back” snapped his older sister, “Don’t be so greedy.” The younger sister pleaded, “But surely, it’s Christmas Day!” The older aunt was not to be deterred. Looking imperiously at her 89-year-old
brother, she said ‘He has to learn!”

This is the soil out of which the story of Cain and Abel becomes the story of everybody. A great many politicians and religious leaders talk about safeguarding or promoting or focusing on the family – but you wonder if these people have ever lived in one. The book of Genesis isn’t the slightest bit sentimental when it comes to the realities of growing up with a brother. Here are Cain and Abel; the first recorded sign of trouble and straightaway Abel’s blood is crying out from the ground.

Then a few chapters later we have Abraham and Lot, who were cousins but in one place are called brothers. We have this resonant sentence, “their possessions were so great that they could not live together.” Ouch. Feel the quality of that for a moment. “Their possessions were so great that they
could not live together.” My sister and I became the best of friends only when she went away to university. I didn’t realize we were living out the Abraham and Lot story.

And then there’s Isaac and Ishmael. Anyone here got a half brother? You going to tell me that’s a picnic? You’re the older one and you’re constantly told you should be nice to your little brother even though every time you look at him you think, “It was your mother that ruined my parents’ marriage.
How can I not hate you? Why should I love someone who’s taken away my dad’s attention that used to be all mine?” Or you’re the younger one and you think “I didn’t choose this domestic arrangement so why do I get blamed for it? What do I have to do to be taken seriously in this house and not treated as a toy?”

And we haven’t even spoken yet about Jacob and Esau, and what happens when one parent starts using a child in her maneuverings against the other. Boy does that make it yet more complicated, when you’re piggy in the middle between your parents! And finally there’s Joseph and his brothers, and it’s as if in that story that every element in all the previous stories comes together in a volcano of fratricide and parental favoritism and an over-inflated ego – and yet profound love. Kerboom. If there’s anyone here this morning who doesn’t recognize themselves in one of these stories I’d be mighty surprised. If your life is a chaos of thinly-veiled warfare, and a desperate struggle for recognition, and love you long for but daren’t ask for, and long-festering resentment, and freshly minted fury – welcome to Genesis. You’ll be quite at home.

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“Having the baby now…No time to get to the hospital…At the tea shop,” hollered the “Grandma” as she ran up the stairs past Iven to retrieve something from her room, looking understandably extremely anxious. We don’t know these neighbors well but have been trying to connect more, especially with the three younger children in their family of five – quickly becoming six – living in the tiny apartment that shares a wall with ours. The oldest of the kids who lives at home was nine months pregnant with her second baby and we had been greeting them with “Has the baby come yet?” for weeks already.

I took our own little baby Elian across the street to the sidewalk tea shop where the girl was laboring, in a lawn chair, just behind the tea cart. Her mom was hurriedly pacing back and forth on the street and people were yelling to get the girl in a taxi, while others hollered back, “there’s no time!”

I joined the small crowd of women gathered around her, trying not to be in the way, quietly praying and wondering if there was something I could do to help. One of my neighbors and I joked together about how little Elian had come to help encourage the baby that was getting ready to greet the world.

After just a few minutes a motorcycle pulled up with two men on it. Their police radios and first aid bag told me that they were some sort of official “first responders”. We had read a newspaper article recently (actually, on Elian’s due date) about how in Bangkok there is a special division of policemen on motorcycles that are trained and dispatched to deliver babies for women stuck in traffic. The guy they highlighted had just delivered his 42nd baby stuck in traffic.

My neighbor, however, didn’t even have time to start fighting the traffic to the hospital – less than a minute after the official looking guys arrived the girl started shrieking in a manner which told all of us that have given birth before that the baby was coming NOW. Most people started shrieking back and the men I had expected to come take control of the situation passed out two pairs of rubber gloves, said repeatedly, “better for the women to do it” and turned to walk the other way.

The woman who runs the tea cart looked at me and asked in Thai, “Tam Pben Mai? (Can you do it/Do you know how?)” I totally thought she was joking so I half laughed and responded with, “I don’t know how, but I can pray!!” She and one other girl I don’t know put on the gloves and several of us helped pull off the shorts and underwear of the laboring women, from beneath a sarong that was draped over her lap.

The girl’s shrieking made it clear that the baby’s arrival was quite imminent, and though I am sure everyone else there also recognized this, nobody did anything. Finally the younger girl with gloves picked up the sarong and sure enough revealed the head of a baby that had already emerged between his mother’s legs. She timidly put her gloved hand under the baby’s head and looked at me with terror, clearly totally overwhelmed. I thought, “this is ridiculous…someone needs to step in.” I turned to a neighbor and asked her to hold Elian, reached my hand out to motion for the tea shop lady’s gloves (who gleefully pulled them off and worked to get them onto my hands instead) and reached down to help guide the baby all the way out of his mama, and into this world.

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Once again, I closed the newspaper and tried to think of better news, instead of reading about another murder.   Once again, I passed in front of the yellow tape a policeman had put up at the scene of a crime. Once again I wanted to cry out to God on behalf of the families involved. One more death. One more kid. One more driver. One more child. One more woman. One more is too much and is one more than necessary. When a human life is lost, the feelings of powerlessness and the inability to feel comfort are natural, and lately the feeling of powerlessness has begun to feel normal. But in the last few weeks, I have also been trying to reflect on new ways to listen to the Spirit that guides us in the midst of such trying times.

“Listen! Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground.” – Genesis 4:10

Recently I have been reading a book called Power & Poverty by Dewe Hughes. He mentions this passage from Genesis 4:10, analyzing reactions to injustice and the incorrect use of power by certain groups. Though in and of itself it is such a powerful message in the context of the struggle for power, I realized that the very literal words have a much deeper meaning than I ever previously noticed.  Something special about this verse is that it is God himself who is talking; he recognizes what is going on. This should be enough to allow us to breathe more easily. God knows. God does not ignore what these hands are doing. But more than that, God speaks of the blood as a symbol of life and he speaks of your brother. What a great implication this has on my identity. The blood that has been shed is part of my blood! He also speaks of a cry – a voice that calls out for justice, a voice that speaks out of the ground, the lowest place on earth, the point from which the shed blood cannot be gathered again.

Every one of these words can be deeply analyzed, but I have found myself thinking over and over again of the phrase as a whole: ‘Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground.’ I can almost hear it as if it were spoken to me! I ask myself, ‘Can you not hear it? Have you not realized? What are your going to do with that voice, that cry?’

In the middle of the city of Kingston, Jamaica there is a statue in memory of the children who have died in tragic circumstances. The title of the sculpture is ‘Gone too soon’. It is surrounded by the names of hundreds of children whose lives have been taken and the date of their murders. When we visited, we were told that at the unveiling of the statue, one of the hopes expressed was never having to write another name on it. This has not been the case. But despite the circumstances, the first step is being taken: the cry of the bloodshed has been heard. As symbolic as it can be, as little as one monument represents, it is doing something.  There are people who are writing down one more name, one more date. And they seek justice.

Some of us have the privilege of walking in the ‘lowest places’ and being witnesses of the tragedy, violence, and pain that exists in these communities because of injustice, death and scarcity. We also have the privilege of listening to the cry rising up from these low places – a cry that unites us. We are witnesses of a divine voice that recognizes and hears our cry, and He does not remain silent.

Liz Herrera loves to learn, read, have a good cup of coffee and find creative ways to combine her passions: communications, urban ministries, social action and mixed media.  Liz is a journalist and has served alongside the team of CTM Guatemala since 2006 and worked for over 12 years among marginalized populations with churches and non-profit organizations.

I came across a dirty onion tossed out in the sun
Abandoned trash that could not be of use to anyone
It lay upon the filthy ground with darkened, withered skin
That did not let me scrutinize the contents held within

With curiousness, I picked it up and then began to peel
The outer layers off to see what insides might reveal
And as I went about my task reducing surface size
The onion fumes brought searing pain and tears welled in my eyes

Hardened, tainted layers were the first that I removed
But inner rings were softer and the quality improved
And when I reached the onion’s center finishing my tour
I found the core was undefiled; was tender, fresh and pure

I came across a youth in jail his body scarred, tattooed
An outcast of society his manner violent, lewd
Curious I then sought to know how was this youth inside
What was the nature of his soul what feelings did he hide

His outer shell was heartless, hard and tough to penetrate
But as I slowly gained his trust I found a different state
He shed the armor he’d built up throughout his sordid past
To guard against the threats he’d faced that left me quite aghast

Abandoned, starved, despised, abused, rejected through the years
The angst released from woes peeled off brought searing pain and tears
The surface layers of this youth were vicious, mean and wild
But in his depths I found the love and meekness of a child

How can we reach that tender heart, what ways can we devise
To break through callousness; remove what causes youths’ demise?
Not jails but God’s transforming grace should be our fervent goal
Peel off the layers, reach the core, set free their yearning soul

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This past month 22 students graduated with a masters degree in Global Urban Leadership and one with a doctorate through CTM’s partnership with Bakke Graduate University.

This celebration was the fruit of much labor and much love. Each student read nearly 15,000 pages, written more than 300 pages and completed at least 10 projects in which they translated principles into practice. These students underwent a demanding process of learning how to do theology from below –  learning how to read Scripture with and for the communities they serve. This was no ivory tower experience. This was theology done in the context in which the leader’s serve. All of their classes were held in informal settlements like Kibera and Mathare.

As graduates they join a very exclusive club. Less than 1% of the world’s population holds a masters degree and a fraction of 1% holds a doctorate. A very rare and seductive kind of power was conferred upon them along with their degrees and they will be called to steward it on behalf of those they serve. They will be tempted, as all people with power are tempted, to use their gift for their own ends, thereby excluding others.

Stewarding power and using one’s voice on behalf of the voiceless is not without its risks. That is why Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, said that if we want to teach and preach a subversive Gospel, “The key is not to be detected too soon.” Why? Because theology from below is often experienced as a threat by those from above. This should not surprise us. Even Jesus’ first sermon ended badly. The crowd became enraged and filled with vengeance when Jesus began to teach about the expansive movement of grace throughout history that made room for the excluded (See Luke 4:16-30).