Episode 3: What is Justice to You?

Through sharing stories, ideas, and revelations and trusting their imaginations, we learn from two Brite Divinity School Master of Divinity students, Linda Angelita Sanchez and Corey Wallis, about what justice can mean and look like.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Welcome to Just Bright. A Bright Divinity School podcast. Emphasizing journeying with justice. Just Bright provides the opportunity to hear about what makes Bright Bright. We teach people who are serious about exploring the work of justice in a tangible way. I'm your host, Ola What? And in today's episode, I talk with Corey and Linda, two Bright Divinity School students, about what justice is to them. Let's have a listen. Welcome to Just Bright, a Bright Divinity School podcast. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Linda Angelita Sanchez and Corey Wallace. Linda Angelita Sanchez, she her. MDiv is a student minister at Northway Christian Church, the Bright Student Association Social Chair, and co-collaborator of Immigration Justice Coalition at the Center for Theology and Justice. Corey Wallace, she her. MDiv is past president at Kingdom Community, a summer camp for LGBTQIA youth, and an intern at the Center for Theology and Justice. As you can see, justice is important. The Center for Theology and Justice is deeply important, and that's why I have these two brilliant, bright MDiv students here to have a conversation with them. So I'm just going to ask y'all a couple of questions and we're going to see where the energy goes. So this is open to both of y'all. So respond in whatever order you'd like. Why do you think justice is important as a faith praxis? Faith or otherwise? Why do you think justice is important as a faith praxis?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

So when I hear a question like this, it's funny how informed my definition of anything is by my education app, right? And I've taken so many Dr. Kant classes. My first question is, what is justice in this context? I took a class called Global Justice that talked about global and local justice and really tore down all of the different thoughts on justice and the different kinds of injustice that exists in the broader world. And it really convicted me on how complicated and expansive this question is. Like what is justice? It could be linguistic justice, it could be how we invest our money. And what I've come to conclude is that nothing is actually neutral. Right? We exist in a state where we think that if we just don't go to protest, we're neutral, we care. But everything that we do is a form of justice or injustice. We are creating or we are maintaining systems of justice and injustice. And that can be overwhelming, but it can also be healing because it means that we have so much power in our decisions and the way that we live our lives, and that we can start creating just worlds all around us. And so me and Linda, we go to the ICE prayer vigils on Mondays, sometimes on Wednesdays, and we plan a lot of activities. But we can also do things like as a white woman with traumas, go to therapy every week, learn how to deal with my own trauma so I'm not traumatizing others. It could be reading fiction books that bring me outside of my own personal experience to give me a better understanding of the world around me. There's so many ways to enact justice and that it's more of an embodied practice of creativity and openness now than it is even sort of a decision, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Yeah. And I love that, Corey, about how you bring up um like Dr. Kong and um what we're learning at Bright in the classroom about justice and praxis. Um, because I think the hope is that we are making informed justice actions, right? Because it's not just something that we believe in, but also something that we do. And so what are the necessary steps and the kind of like prereqs as people that are wanting to do justice work um out in the world? You know, like what are the concepts and things that we must understand first so that we can show up in the world in a way that is informed and prepared to task tackle the injustices that are happening, whether it be like systemic or whether it be linguistic or all the ways that you mentioned, um, definitely like not just something that we're believing in and learning about, that's something that we want to do and want to do appropriately and informed.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Okay. Um so you you're digging into this notion of what justice means, which I think is absolutely correct. I think is absolutely right. And I think this is that's a posture everybody should take when approaching any kind of justice work. Um you mentioned, Corey, um, that you and Linda and other bright students are a part of this prayer visual at ICE detention center in the DFW area. Um and and uh I imagine this notion of hospitality is interwoven with um uh the desire to be present um in the ways that you are for something like this. Um how might justice, however you're thinking about it and working it out, and hospitality intersect for you? Uh Corey, I'll I'll ask you to jump in first. How might justice and hospitality intersect for you?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Oh, this is such an interesting question. Brings me back to Dr. Kong again. All roads lead to Dr. Kong with me. Um in her cosmopolitan theology course, um, she talks about hospitality being a central tenant of Christianity, the fact that God became human and shared food and wine and his in his body with creation and um a form of hospitality like that. So when I show up and I say, Oh, I define myself as a Christian modeled after Jesus Christ of Nazareth, what does that mean? And that means that I show up with food and wine, maybe in my body um for justice work, you know, justice work with um other humans for humans for creation um in a myriad of different ways.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

Um Linda, what are you thinking? Oh, sorry. I was asking the same question, Linda. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yes, I love this question and I love thinking about the intersection of justice and hospitality because I feel like in the work that Corey and I are specifically doing, like I can't, I don't see a disconnect. You know, I see them being in relationship. And my kind of perspective is very much informed by um the fact that like I'm Latina. Um, and a lot of like what's really beautiful and central to our culture is the sharing of meals and the sharing of experiences and like welcoming people into your home. Like if I had it the way like traditionally, like I could live at my parents' home until I was married and that would be okay. And like multi-generational homes are like a-okay, you know, because like if you need a home, we're gonna provide a home, you know, and so I think about, but when I think about justice and hospitality, like hospitality here is not necessarily just about welcoming someone, but also about making space in a way that is shifting power actively. And so when justice, I think, demands an answer for why exclusion is real, right? When we think about like immigration justice, um, justice is exposing the reality as to why exclusion is real, and hospitality then in response does not ignore that. So the intersection for me personally um is that hospitality becomes just when it refuses to be performative, like performative, when it refuses to be performative and instead confronts the conditions that make a welcome even necessary. And so for me, the difference um is not just that we're offering someone a seat at the table, but asking why their seat was denied to begin with, and then having the audacity to ask certain people to get up so we can rearrange the table. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

They have to mean it.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yes. And like have the audacity, like care so much enough that you're just like, yeah, I'm gonna get uncomfortable and I'm gonna ask certain people at this table, hey, would you would you get up? I just need to do a little something real quick.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

There has to be action, there has to be movement, it sounds like in this this whole thing called doing justice work. Let me ask y'all this why why is uh action, why is activity, why is movement, especially in the right ways, critical to justice making? What are your thoughts on that? Actually, I'm gonna say Linda, I want to hear your thoughts on that first.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Okay, I also feel quite passionately about this. Plus, like action is so necessary, and right action is so necessary because injustice is not passive. Like injustice does not take a break, it is not rest, it is structured and enforced and made possible daily by various people who are in power. And so action is what you and I can try to do to interrupt the cycles, the very active cycles of harm that we are seeing every day. And action is what can then also, because we feel all of these things, right? Like we feel like the burdens of our neighbors that are experiencing injustice daily. We feel that. And so action is what then can transform these feelings of compassion and empathy and experiences of faith into something material and tangible. So maybe it's providing food, or maybe it's making sure that communities have clean water, or offering legal sources to migrants who are just entering and making their journey and much more.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

And I feel like Linda, thinking about what you said then and connecting it to what you said earlier, it is not just an action of empathy and compassion, it is allowing ourselves to be uncomfortable and deciding that our empathy and our compassion can put us in situations that we might not naturally choose for ourselves, and how do we make that right next choice?

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

And I think that's really wise. I appreciate you bringing that into this space.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

Justice can live in that intersection of action and imagination, morality and practicality. Justice shows up wherever one shows up in the right ways. Let's continue to listen. I have a Dr. O question, but I'm gonna stay on script and not move us too off course. Ada Maria Sassi Diaz, who um I I try to use in my ethics classes, um, has this beautiful chapter on solidarity. And solidarity to to coincide with a lot of the language y'all have been using, it is showing up. It's not, oh, I feel bad, and that's all I'm gonna express. It's gonna I'm gonna express action through literally how I move in the world. It's solidarity is uh becoming different because you're actually being with people. So I love that definition of solidarity from her. Um, I'm curious to hear from y'all. Um, well, what do you think solidarity is? How are you how are you thinking about it? And how is solidarity work a form of ministry? How is solidarity a ministry? How is solidarity work a ministry?

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Linda, what do you got?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

I think I love that definition um and the kind of highlighting of showing up. Um, because I think solidarity is not doing for but being with. Um and I think like in honest solidarity, um I think that it is ministry because it dismantles this like illusion, like this delusion that we are the ones bringing God anywhere. And bringing God into, you know, the margins or into these desolate spaces. Like it dismantles that illusion. Um, and it brings to the front and to the center that God is already present in the struggle and has been there, you know. And then in trying to really understand solidarity as ministry, it also requires us to show up in a way that we examine ourselves to not be saviors, you know? Um, because I think oftentimes like when we try to do justice work, like through the church, we end up showing up as saviors, actually. Um, and so and that's not necessarily presence, right? That's like trying to dominate the space, like, and that's not what we're trying to do here. Um, and so it takes our like like it shifts our vision away from showing up as saviors, but just showing up like in an honest way to be able to see like what God is actually doing in this space and to see actual needs and to see people as human and as people with agency. And it means um like willing to be in present in this space and be transformed in a way that maybe you weren't expecting to be transformed in, or in a way that is new and uncomfortable and requires you to lose control. And yeah, it being willing to take risk and to like bear the cost of control and comfortability.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

One of the people that I'm learning about solidarity from is actually from our vigils. Um, and it's not a clergy member or anything like that, it is a woman, a retired woman named Patricia, and she's got a cane and she brings the signs to every single one of these vigils, right? And my favorite game to play is Will I See Patricia on the news? Because as any rally in Dallas, you're gonna see her or her cane right there behind anybody, whether it's um the creation of bombs, whether it's a death penalty, where it's these ice rays, Patricia is there. And on Wednesday, I was standing next to her because I'm a little obsessed with her, so I kind of move towards her as much as I can. Um, and she was telling me about how she was leaving the vigil and she's gonna go in the afternoon, she does court observation with the Cina Zorninos with these ice, and she does it every single afternoon, and then in the evening she goes to different protests if there is one, or she'll go to some sort of training. And I was like, Patricia, how do you do all this? Like, this is so much. And she looked at me, she said, How could I not? How could I not be here? And I think it it was really profound to me because I was in this space that was explicitly religious, where everybody's trying to come up with some sort of frameworks about why we should care and what we should do. And her answer to all that is, how could I not? She's not even that religious, she's just there because how could she not be there? Um, and I've taken that, I've thought about that, and that is kind of the example of solidarity that I'm considering as I consider how to go forward in the world.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Shout out to Patricia.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Literally, what a queen!

SPEAKER_02 16:25

I love Patricia. Shout out to Patricia with the spiritual truths in her solidarity, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

The embodiment of that spiritual truth, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:37

I mean, Corey, you you've you've leaned into this, um, and I'd love to hear your thoughts, Linda's thoughts. Um, what can Christians andor the Christian church learn about what it means to be faithful from actively being in solidarity?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

One thing I've considered is that I've been convicted of as somebody in the Christian system, is we need to learn how to tell the truth about our histories, um, about our systems, about our moments, about our own theology. We have to figure out how to um tell the truth. We are so stuck in the binary of good or bad, holy or unholy, that we have um neutered ourselves, if you will, from the ability to do justice because we cannot live into anything else. Um, and so I found really life-giving with secular organizations and organizations that maybe are post-Christian is that they do not put themselves in those same frameworks that steals their voice. Um, and so I think that as a Christian, as somebody who wants to live into justice in the world, that sort of honesty and that sort of evaluation and that sort of in Linda's work becoming uncomfortable and even my systematic thoughts is really important as we go forward.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

That is so good.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Oh, y'all are y'all are just blowing my mind.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Oh god!

SPEAKER_03 18:06

Oh core requirement of doing justice seems to be just telling and doing the truth. Let's keep listening.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

So, what can the Christian church learn about faithfulness through Act of Solidarity?

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Like Linda, can I make a request? Yeah, can you tell us about um your idea of sanctuary? Because I feel like that is that fits into this.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Um, we're gonna start this off by saying this is a Linda Sanchez original.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

So, okay, Linda, please educate us.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah, so this kind of like um push and almost like conviction to see the church and sanctuaries out in the world um began when I started thinking about um first like how my culture is inherently religious. And though we are inherently religious, um, we a lot of us don't go to church because this system or this created image of a good Christian or good religious person wasn't created with all bodies in mind, right? And so for a lot of um, at least people in my community, uh, people have work, you know, or they're in circumstances or they've had to work so much, then the Sunday morning is a time to rest, you know, and not all of us have the privilege to be able to show up for certain services at certain times and days throughout the week. Um and I so I started thinking about like labor and how these uh systems were not created with all bodies in mind, and I started to really just kind of sit with the experiences of the Jornalero, which is the um day laborers, is what how we we call them Jornaleros, and specifically those that are um in the like Home Depot parking lots and the supermercado parking lots who are waiting for work, right? Um, and work comes sometimes, right? And sometimes weather has to do why you don't, why there is no work. Sometimes it means that people are scared to give someone who is undocumented work because of the increase of ice in our communities. Um, and yet, despite all of these things, Jornaleros wake up daily, really early, whether rain or shine, whether they haven't received work in days, they show up daily to these parking lots in faith that God will provide a work for them or some jobs. And what's beautiful about this parking lot too is that the Jornaleros are not alone, right? We we know that God is present in this space, but also there's community because there's the jornaleros and then there's the mujeres that show up that are also too kind of looking for informal work. They show up with colors of like Coca-Cola, for instant coffee, breakfast burritos, tamales. And we see a community being formed here because these women are selling this food to not only the jornaleros, but also the people that are offering the work. And so when thinking about sanctuary in this space, I mean, I see people talking to God with their bodies and showing up expectant with a faith that sometimes you can't even create in the institution. You know, and so they show up with their bodies and their face, and we have the the table, the Eucharist, eat without liturgy. I mean, like, think about it. We're the the people of Christ are here, the cooler is the table, and the the burrito is the bread. And so we're having all of these elements of the church, but the church. Isn't there and we're not going to church, you know? And so thinking about like how like challenging Christians to be able to see the church out in the world, right? And so and is act of solidarity also something that we're considering as ministry because, like, we're not actually getting people in the seats of the church, yeah, right. And so, what is required of us to be able to see active solidarity as a ministry, not just because, like, oh, I need to check off these boxes to be a good Christian, but because, oh, this is a mandate, and our faith must confront the injustices that make things like this necessary, right? And so we need to de-center the institution in the tradition and recognize ourselves as active participants out in the world and be able to be willing to look for the sanctuaries that are already created and happening in your communities.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

We're just marinating, we're just sitting, we're just sitting with it.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

You know, it's funny. I heard this from Linda a couple weeks ago, and it's been really sitting with me to like decolonize what I think about sanctuary. Um, and before I before I came to Bright, it was the pandemic, and I didn't go to church because it was a pandemic, but I became somehow a chicken farmer. Um, and I didn't have I know it's so random. So every weekend I would go and I would sit in front of like 50 chickens and you know, and I hung out with them on the weekends. I fed them, we spent time together, and I had didn't have the language to explain how holy that was and how sanctuary can we go beyond even our own human species into the created order. And so I appreciate you, Linda, thinking about it, thinking about like an act of solidarity with creation, with the chickens and with the grass and with the nature that's around me in ways that I didn't even realize. I didn't have the theological imaginations for. I think that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

I think that's what's on the table here. Justice invites theological imagination to degrees that we might not even be cognizant of until we're in it. I I've heard so many things from y'all. I've heard there's uh being with one another in ways that are um material, actual, practical, um, but also really sacred and holy. Um I've heard um you first got to be with yourself in really honest ways, um, especially around things that um might make you uncomfortable, including the things that you fear um being changed or taken away from you, including the the uh the theological training that you might have inherited. Yeah, but trusting that there is some divine wisdom in showing up as your full self, uh fully to one another. Like that seems to be, it's not the core, but it seems central to justice work that's actually honest and real. So I I I'm just I'm I'm I'm I'm quiet because I'm I'm sitting with the the stories and the ideas and your observations and I'm yeah, I'm I'm uh realizing the wisdom and the the holiness in uh everything that you've been offering. It's not just and I know y'all have been so consistent doing this for months, it's not just showing up um in Dallas at the detention center and uh you know putting your body where theology is, but it's it's it's when you go home and you sit with what am I what am I doing and what am I becoming by what I'm doing? And I that's that's what that's what I've been in awe of in this conversation, that y'all have y'all have really tapped into some divine wisdom. And it's not precluded from the showing up, it's it's sharpened because you show up. So thank y'all for for being um connected to Bright Bright is lucky to have y'all. Thank y'all for being connected to the Center for Theology and Justice. Thank y'all for just being you and whether it's through an organization or not, doing the right thing and doing the honest thing. Um, I deeply appreciate y'all. Uh Linda, Andalita Sanchez, Corey Wallace. Um, thank you so much on for being on Just Right. And y'all, this might have to be the first of many conversations to come because there's there's a lot to talk about. I didn't even get to ask the Dr. O question. So there's a lot to talk about, y'all. But just know you are deeply appreciated, and it's been a gift for me to be learning from you. So, thank y'all. All right, I'm gonna close it out now. Thank you for listening to Just Bright. We hope that you leave informed and inspired to journey with justice. You can learn more about how to give to Bright Divinity School and its initiatives by visiting bright.edu. Take care.