Mary’s Pence
Lenten Soup Supper – Solidarity in a Time of Separateness
OPENING
Welcome and Gathering
Mary’s Pence For 25 years, Mary’s Pence donors have acted on their faith by supporting women who
live in poverty to have a say and a hand in how poverty can be alleviated and social
equity achieved. We have pooled our resources to fund women in North, Central and
South America and the Caribbean who are working for social justice. We do this
because everything we have in excess belongs to the poor. It is theirs.
Introduction Questions:
What is your involvement in this faith community?
What drew you here today?
What does solidarity mean to you?
READINGS AND REFLECTIONS
Solidarity with Our Own Circles
Reader: From Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, & Community in an Age of Transition by
Charles Eisenstein
Social capital refers primarily to relationships and skills, the “services” that people once
provided for themselves and each other in a gift economy, such as cooking, child care, health
care, hospitality, entertainment, advice, and the growing of food, making of clothes, and building
of houses. As recently as one or two generations ago, many of these functions were far less
commoditized than they are today. When I was a child, most people I knew seldom ate at
restaurants, and neighbors took care of each other’s children after school. Technology has been
instrumental in bringing human relationships into the realm of “services,” just as it has brought
deeper and more obscure pieces of the earth into the realm of goods. For example, the
technology of the phonograph and radio helped turn music from something people made for
themselves into something they paid for. Storage and transportation technologies have done the
same for food processing. In general, the fine division of labor that accompanies technology has
made us dependent on strangers for most of the things we use, and makes it unlikely that our
neighbors depend on us for anything we produce. Economic ties thus become divorced from
social ties, leaving us with little to offer our neighbors and little occasion to know them.
The monetization of social capital is the strip-mining of community. It should not be
surprising that money is deeply implicated in the disintegration of community, because money is
the epitome of the impersonal.
Reflection: Who in your own circle do you want to be in Solidarity with?
Solidarity with The Other
Reader: “Shadow Survivors” by Reneene Robertson
Proud Americans
Stepping up to donate
Food
1
Clothing
Shelter
Cash
Jobs
To those recently made homeless by Hurricane Katrina
The same Americans who have
Shunned
Ignored
Derided
The homeless in their midst for decades
Right now in this Great Land
Drift the shadow survivors of Invisible Katrinas
Storms of life that have blown them astray
Six shadows standing behind each face on the news
Now forced to wait even longer for help
As the recent victims supplant them in the aid lines
When you open your hearts and purses
to those you see in the media
Remember the six shadows in your own hometown
Victims of the Invisible Katrinas
Must not be left behind
Reflection: Who is “The Other” to you? Within this category, who do you want to be in
Solidarity with?
Solidarity with Creation/Earth/Cosmos
Reader: From “In Us Life Grows,” by Mercedes Canas in Women Healing Earth: Third World
Women on Ecology, Feminism, and Religion”
“The domination and exploitation of nature and of women by Western industrial civilization are
mutually reinforcing because women are considered similar to nature. The life of the earth is an
interconnected web, and no privileged hierarchy of the human over nature, justifying its
domination, exists. A healthy, balanced ecosystem, which includes human and non-human
inhabitants, must maintain diversity. Ecofeminism promotes a global movement founded on
common interests and respect for diversity, in opposition to all forms of domination and
violence. The continuation of life on this planet demands a new understanding of our relation
with nature, with other human beings, and with our own bodies.”
Reflection: Who or what do you want to be in Solidarity with in regards to Creation, the
Earth, and/or the Cosmos?
Solidarity with God
Reader: “I Will Just Say This,” by St. Theresa of Avila
We
bloomed in Spring.
2
Our bodies
are the leaves of God.
The apparent seasons of life and death
our eyes can suffer;
but our souls, dear, I will just say this forthright:
they are God
Himself,
we will never perish
unless He
does.
Reflection: How do you want to be in Solidarity with God?
5. What will we carry forward?
Reader: From Accompanying: Pathways to Social Change by Staughton Lynd
Dr. [Paul] Farmer makes clear in the first paragraph of his Harvard talk that the aftermath of
the Haitian earthquake was for him an object lesson about the arena he thought he knew most
about. In discussing the things he learned and relearned during those difficult years, he states
that, “[a]ll of them turn about the notion of accompaniment.” The word “accompaniment” is an
elastic one: “it means just what you’d imagine, and more. To accompany someone is to go
somewhere with him or her, to break bread together, to be present on a journey with a beginning
and an end.” Farmer indicates that we’re almost never sure about the end.
There’s an element of mystery, of openness, in accompaniment. I’ll go with you
and support you on your journey whereever it leads. I’ll keep you company and
share your fate for a while. And by “a while,” I don’t mean a little while.
Accompaniment is much more about sticking with a task until it’s deemed
completed by the person or people being accompanied…
During the song, “The Circle’s Larger,” please reflect on these questions:
What stands in my way to be in solidarity?
How will I act to overcome these barriers and live the solidarity I seek?
Write down one or two concrete steps you will take to live a life of solidarity (these papers will
not be read by anyone but yourself). When you are ready, offer up your commitment and place it
in the basket on the center of the altar. This basket represents your shared covenant with the
other participants to bring about an Easter world of hope, justice, and peace by living a life of
solidarity.
Listen and Reflect: You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children
of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth. Try to learn what
is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them, for it
is shameful even to mention the things done by them in secret; but everything exposed by the
light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light (Ephesians 5:8-14).
3
The Work of Mary’s Pence – Supporting Women Making Positive Change
Mary’s Pence invites you to sign up for their mailing list. It is a great way to learn more
about the organization and ways to be involved. Donations tonight can be made to
Mary’s Pence, in support of women working to end poverty and injustice in their
communities. Thank you for your support.
GRACE AND MEAL
All: God, our mother, God, our father, God of compassion, we thank you for gifting us with
each other’s presence as we celebrate your Presence among us. We ask you to bless the meal
that we are about to share. Bless us as we are nourished by this food. Open our eyes to see and
feed the hungry and the homeless. Open our ears so that we listen to the cries of those in need.
Open our hearts to include all people in our lives as your children and as our sisters and
brothers. We yearn to live in solidarity with all God’s people. We ask in your name. Amen.
Shared Soup Supper Together
CLOSE
All: We are on a journey of discipleship
- a discipleship of compassion.
What we choose
Changes us.
Who we love
Transforms us.
How we create
Remakes us.
Where we live
Reshapes us.
So in all our choosing, O God, make us wise;
In all our loving, O Christ, make us bold;
In all our creating, O Spirit, give us courage;
In all our living, may we become whole.
“Discipleship of Compassion,” by Jan Richardson, In Wisdom's Path
4