Important Update: Book Launched, but Party Rescheduled!

   Meantime, Ched will talk about Healing Affluenza on Mon, Feb 17, 4:30-6 pm PST, when BCM will offer a “detox on President’s Day” webinar. He will interview Chuck Collins of inequality.org, the foremost critic of plutocracy, who wrote the Foreword to HARP (Chuck will talk about his new book too!) Register for FREE HERE.

Further down the line, ecotheologian Rev. Ragan Sutterfield will post on Fri, Feb 28 his interview with Ched about HARP, Sabbath Economics and a life of radical discipleship (go to https://thewaywepractice.substack.com/). And on Wed, April 23, 4-5:30 pm PDT,
Ched will read Lk 5:1-11 with our friends at Faith and Money Network.  This webinar will reflect on natural abundance in God’s Economy in contrast to the artificial scarcity generated by imperial economics. Register here.

Ched Reflects on Why We Postponed the Book Celebration

In October 1993, I was up at the fireline of the Kinneloa fire in Altadena, helping folks evacuate. It was part of our emergency response at AFSC where I worked, at an office located just a couple of miles from the inferno. It was my first experience up close to wildfires. This was around the time I met two friends who have been faithful companions since. Rick Kidd attended Bible study in our home in Highland Park, and later became our BCM board chair for many years.  Rev. Matt Colwell was a seminarian at Fuller who took a class I taught, and later joined our BCM staff for short stints, authoring our Sabbath Economics: Household Practices booklet in 2007). Matt and family, and Rick’s son Chris and family, lost their houses in the Eaton Fire earlier this month, among the estimated 9,400 structures—homes, schools, houses of worship, businesses, whole neighborhoods—that were destroyed in Altadena alone.  Words fail.

If you are up to it, view all you need to know in a 2 minute video here; Rick, Myrna and Chris documented their drive around west Altadena searching for the remains of Chris’s home.  The landscape looks, as many have commented, like pictures we’ve seen of Gaza.
We’ve been aching all month for those displaced by the fire in this community, near to which I used to live and organize, as well as elsewhere in L.A. We have spoken at length with both Matt and Rick (whose house was spared, but looted during the evacuation). They reckon they are OK, with adequate support, unlike many. An exhausted Sarah Nolan at All Saints stayed with us overnight recently on a break from their nonstop work in relief and recovery—and reported how Altadena’s African American and Latinx communities disproportionately impacted.  Join us in praying for the long road ahead, that folks may have strength and clarity to tackle their sprint of survival—and then the marathon of reconstruction. 
Here in Ventura County, we were fine, though also vigilant through many days of Red Flag Warnings. We were excited to gather with our SoCal community to launch Healing Affluenza at All Saints Church on Feb 15, thinking that this excuse to celebrate my 70^th birthday might also help build courage to push back a little against the now flood-tide of Trumpian plutocracy. But as we talked with trusted friends on the ground in L.A., each time learning more about the extent of the damage, our planning and promotion momentum evaporated. Having been through both the Kinneloa Fire and the much more recent (and proximate) trauma of the 2017 Thomas Fire that surrounded our valley, I know too much about the material and existential terrain facing folks now in the Arroyo Seco watershed.
Consequently, as announced above, we decided to move our event back 6 weeks to April 5. The priority down there is recovery—and late season rain storms could further complicate the burned areas, as happened so dramatically after the Thomas Fire. We can’t pull on our friends down there to help organize the event—and we just don’t want to gather without Rick and Matt! So we’re hoping a celebration just two weeks before Easter might help our friends turn toward Resurrection hope. 

Matt and Chris both have stories of fleeing from their homes with just the clothes on their backs and a few things thrown into the car, as fierce, wind-driven flames approached in the dead of night. This brings to mind a gospel haunting: Jesus’ warning about “the days of Lot when fire rained down,” when those fleeing their homes could not take any possessions, nor could those in the field turn back (Lk 17:28-31). Keep in mind that in the biblical story—unlike how it is still preached in conservative churches today—Lot’s conflagration was the result of that city’s inhospitality to strangers, not sexual sins. And lo, Trump’s very first week in office he made good on his threat to deport immigrants, as swarms of ICE agents descended on

Let us be clear that disasters such as those that razed whole swatches of suburban L.A. are more social than natural, resulting from economic disparities and ecological overdraw. As Chris Rodrigo wrote recently on Inequality.org: “The damage has not discriminated between rich and poor neighborhoods. But those rich neighborhoods have the means to rebuild. Those poor now face the prospect of post-destruction gentrification. The celebration of first responders, meanwhile, has overlooked how California continues to abuse prison labor. Over 1,000 incarcerated people have been fighting the deadly flames. They risk serious injury for less than $15 a day.”
This is why scripture, not least Luke, so often symbolizes consequences of bad behavior as fire. These ancient warnings speak to what’s at stake in our historical moment, too.
So: As the media cycle moves on to other spectacles, let us hold our arms and spirits open in solidarity with our friends who have undergone a baptism by fire. Rick Kidd strongly recommends supporting the relief fund of Pasadena Educational Foundation, with whom he long has worked. They are particularly focusing on students of color, many of whom are now homeless.  Katarina Gea, a former BCM intern and now pastor of Pasadena Mennonite Church, had to evacuate while 8½ months pregnant with her partner (and PMC had to find new worship space for several weeks). Kat makes these recommendations for meeting immediate needs, as it will take months for insurance funds to kick in for recovery:

• “Community Care Fund”: three families from PMC who lost their homes, and others impacted by the fires in our wider community. See www.pasadenamennonite.org
• A GoFundMe page for the Plaza family, pastors of a Spanish-speaking congregation from whom PMC rents our building who lost their parsonage. A family who embodies Jesus’ love and solidarity with our newer immigrant neighbors, they were visiting family in Colombia for the holidays when they heard that their home was destroyed.
• A GoFundMe for Sachea, someone I know who lost her and her sister’s home. They are part of the historic Black community in Altadena who lost the vital social fabric of long-standing neighborhoods and businesses.
• The Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Land Conservancy: a local Tongva-led organization that many of us support has been restoring 1 acre of land that was returned to their community after centuries of colonization. The land overlooks Eaton Canyon where the fire first started, and several of their buildings were destroyed.

Please lend a hand. And if you can, come to our April 5^th party, when hopefully things are a bit better in Pasadena/Altadena!